It’s webcomic review time again, but this time you can read it here. At least the first issue. While there is a collected GN available on Issuu I just like to tease with first episodes/issues here and let you go after the rest of the series. (Besides, I did consider showing the entire thing but I couldn’t get the embed to work. Playing with the “gigya” shortcode is still new to me but I had no trouble with issue #1.) Today we’re looking at another work by BW Virtual Mentor Jerzy Drozd. As he prepares to pop up the next chapter to his biggest series, The Front, it’s only right to introduce you to the universe.
If there’s one thing Jerzy and I disagree on is that I love working on superhero stories and he doesn’t. The closest he’s come is The Front. Like most of his work, there’s a Saturday Morning (or syndicated) cartoon vibe to it. However, that’s what makes his comics so fun. The Front could also be Smallville done right. But check out issue #1 and see what you think.
Jerzy calls The Front a superhero comic, but I would disagree the same way he hates the term “motion comic”. This isn’t a “superhero” story; it’s a “superpower” story, much like Heroes and the recent film Chronicle. To me, “superhero” involves costumes and crimefighting and secret identities and stuff like that. Superheroes don’t necessarily need super powers or high-tech battlesuits. (Batman, for example, or Hawkeye.) A “superpower” story can have crimefighting to an extent, but while Thirsty and his friends battle supervillains they aren’t superheroes in the traditional sense, just folks with superpowers or friends of folks with superpowers. It’s not quite the same thing.
Although the story is about Thirsty, and why the bad guys want him (hint: it involved his powers), the breakout character is actually Jared, the abominable snowman. He was so popular that he even had his own origin special, a stuffed animal, and currently Jerzy does a Jared comic from the lovable fluffball’s perpsective…in crayon no less. (Then again Jerzy is as good with crayons as I wish I was with coloring pencils.) Not bad for an evil hench…monster.
There are so many ways to enjoy the comic. You could read it free on the Make Like a Tree website or through Issuu (hosted at Jerzy’s website). Or, you could order a hard copy of the entire story through Indy Planet, a website for comic publishers too small for Diamond to bother with. (Indy Planet just launched a digital download that includes the Jared origin story as well as previous Saturday Night Showcasees Silver & The Periodic Forces, reviewed here where I kept getting the name wrong, and Switch Runners, which was reviewed here.) With a new storyline coming, now is a good time to visit or re-visit the world of The Front.
BW Media Spotlight 