Frank Ironwine #1 Ellis and McNeil

Frank Ironwine is pure, unadulterated Warren Ellis. From the zen master detective, Frank Ironwine, who goes on a bender after soving a case then sleeps it off in a garbage bin to the new case he's called on to solve. There are no apologies here. Like it or don't. I like it.

I've been looking forward to the Apparat stunt for a while now. For those of you out of the loop on this, Ellis talked the people at Avatar into creating a fictional comics line for one month. (But just how fictional is a comics line that's being published, even if only for one month?) Ellis has written four first issues of original creations. He hand picked the artistes he wanted to do each book. The books were all supposed to be released in the same week, but scheduling problems scuttled that plan. However that's a minor detail. Carla Speed McNeil (Finder) does a solid job on the art. I can see why Ellis likes to work with her.

The book is a little pricey at $3.50, but there is a lot of story here. This isn't the epic, decompressed story telling of Ellis' Planetary or Ulitmate Fantastic Four. There's a lot going on here and it's nice to pick up a comic that takes more than 5 minutes to read. Frank Ironwine is a book I'd buy again, if there were going to be another issue.