Frontier

Jonathan Hickman described his upcoming Image series as "like Star Trek, but super depressing." Star Trek, of course, has historically been about a utopian future where humanity has solved Earth's problems and expanded outward into the cosmos, uniting with other advanced planets to spread civilization across the galaxy. In the future Hickman portrays in Frontier, that plan has apparently not gone so well.

If you haven't been following it, Youth in Decline's Frontier is a comic that you should buy every single issue of --- and you can start anywhere. Frontier is created by a different cartoonist every issue, and the only real through-line is that it highlights talented creators. For that reason alone, it's worth checking out. Each one also offers the opportunity to see those creators do an interesting story that maybe they don't have another space to publish. Some of the great creators that have told stories in Frontier include Emily Carroll, Sam Alden, Jillian Tamaki, and Hellen Jo --- with creators like Michael DeForge and Becca Tobin to come.

Being a subscriber to Youth in Decline's excellent Frontier series of monographs by artists such as Hellen Jo, Sam Alden, Emily Carroll, and more, doesn't make me any less excited whenever the publisher shares sneak peeks and information about upcoming books. The sixth (and final for 2014) installment of Frontier is a new, original comic work by the amazing Emily Carroll titled 'Ann by the Bed,' and once again promises to be another perfectly executed slice of eerie horror from the cartoonist.