The seventh and latest issue of Frater Mine has recently been published, so I thought I’d tell you about it (and the previous issue, which I’d missed).
In this series set in the real world but where magic exists (although not a Doctor Strange magic), we follow Matt, a gay teacher and also a practitioner of magic, who finds himself tangled up in the very weird disappearance of kids around him and his friends, including his own nephew, right when he was visiting his family.
Over the sixth issue, things go from bad to worse, as Matt becomes a suspect for the police, and one member in his family reacts in a strongly homophobic way. While the magical side is developed, writer Sean McGrath also takes his time to flesh out the relationships between the characters, especially between Matt and his brothers (one being the father of the lost kid).
From the 7th issue, Matt goes all magicky
In the seventh issue, Matt and one of his brothers are on the run, with a group of mysterious people shadowing them. Are they friends or foe? Only McGrath knows, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. It seems that the story is even bigger than a few cases of magically-disappeared kids, and that’s good news for the readers, as the writer and artist manage to increase the tension page by page.
With Scott McGrath’s wonderful collage covers and Juan Romera’s always moody art complementing Sean McGrath‘s realistic writing and dialogs, Frater Mine remains for me a very good example of the quality that can be achieved by small press artists and publishers. It isn’t published monthly, but I’d like all the monthly comics I’ve read to be as gripping and memorable.
These comics, as the previous ones, can be bought from IndyPlanet here and here.
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