Frontier
Cartoonist: Guillaume Sanguérin
Translated by Dan Christensen
Localization/Editor: Mike Kennedy
Produced/Lettered by: Chris Northrop
Publisher: Magnetic Press / $24.99
August 2024
Its influences span the galaxy, but only four characters are at the heart of Frontier. A scientist who sold control to ensure his dream spaceship is built. An astronaut who has never set foot on a planet. Sparrow, an ex-mercenary who lost a limb on his last job. And a monkey. He is a monkey. A series of atmospheric collisions bring them together, let’s call it a coincidence, and the path becomes clear. Guillaume Sangeline presents the reader with a question and an answer: What if, when we get to the future, things are heading for ruin in order to make a quick profit on a thoughtless investment? Well, just like today, there are people who are holding it all together. Here are the four of them.
Singerin paints a bleak, capitalist dystopia that is breathtakingly beautiful. The colors are stunning. Frontier’s universe is mysterious and engrossing to look at, even as a squad of hired mercenaries disembarks from a spaceship at the edge of a tiny orbital station with a minimal crew in the foreground of a panel. Frontier somehow not only gives a glimpse into the plot, but the plot is there in the background, too. Ghostly shadows of future importance obscure the stars for the keen eye, as do rays of light streaming from beneath the station that paint a celestial fire reflecting off the spaceship’s windows. (My Magnetic Press paperback copy is not only beautifully printed, but gigantic in print size.) There is overwhelming attention to color detail, near and far.
The landscape must be equally vivid. Green valleys envelop the laboratory buildings. Rainbow-striped mountains rise up in the badlands against the backdrop of blue ore fields. The shareholders don’t terraform planets unless they have a reason to colonize them. So every destination has a specific (not discussed) ecological and technological history that stretches back decades. Complex ideas require complex execution. Singerin’s comic is a magnificent feat of imagination built with visual detail. If zero-gravity combat security is your specialty, you need to be prepared. Every space on board must be used as efficiently as possible, from how the housing complexes are designed to how much carbon dioxide purification can be achieved from the greenhouses.
Moving apes through a vacuum is a cute solution, but driving a car through a roadless wilderness is a heavy utility, a step in the direction of Alien or Griz Globus. The same penchant for chunky, switchgeared detail that gives personal spacecraft personality is reflected in the intersection of vehicle and setting, Frontier’s take on a space station. Combining the bottled city of late capitalism with the intensity of the story’s violence, when things fall apart, they don’t just break, they shatter entirely. Singelin shows us every shard.
The monkey (named Goku, naturally) is extraordinarily cute in any situation, not just in his little space pod. Given his therapy dog co-star in Singerin’s First Second graphic novel PTSD, you might expect to be overwhelmed with cuteness. And non-monkey cuteness isn’t out of place at all. The world’s aesthetic may be Madhouse, but the people are totally Toei. Bomberman sprites to Metal Gear Solid levels. Girls’ Last Tour. Think of the many things Masamune Shirow leaned weirdly into when he made Ghost in the Shell. But throughout Frontier, everyone looks bumpy SD. And while cluttered (Frontier is a book about rubble), it gives the impression of spaciousness as well as density. The stations and scenery convey the same vibe as the people who inhabit them. There are simple shapes that are established in the book with broad strokes like big heads and barbarian structures, a selective lack of realism (Toriyama Akira territory). Negative space with cyberpunk finery along all edges.
Set the politics aside and forget the pretentious art angle for now. The action explodes fast without warning. Frontier presents plenty of poignantly familiar reasons to be angry, but that familiarity makes it (sadly) a bit shocking to see people take action and fight back, rather than just accept what is intolerable. Frontier is similar to Shirou in its ability to simultaneously seem silly and serious, but also in how fast and wild the action can jump out. As with PTSD, Singerin examines war veterans and trauma, and how impossible it is to forget the past when violence is rampant. Conflicts emerge, and peaceful warriors cannot turn a blind eye. There’s no jumping around here, and it’s mostly guns rather than swords, but the rigors and proficiency of combat, combined with the chivalry of outlaws confronting corrupt power, make it feel like wuxia.
As for the politics, there’s no need to guess what’s going on in Singerin’s head. Frontier is not a metaphor for modern problems veiled by future situations, but a future situation with modern problems. See what I mean? It’s a Ridley Scott warning for the future that’s already stale. Today’s headaches, tomorrow’s. Dystopian entropy through consistent mismanagement. Singerin is a character artist on the jump-over-the-age video game Citizen Sleeper, “role-playing in the ruins of interplanetary capitalism,” and Frontier is definitely the same idea. Look. A cheaply built spaceship that can’t stand up to the thwarting of pirates, who crush and rip the poor people on board to shreds. When I say “poor,” I mean pity their fate, but I also mean their control over resources. You have to be motivated to take a job like that. It’s a shame it had to be your last.
Frontier is available from Magnetic Press or wherever higher quality comics and books are sold.
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