Gilt Frame #1 Review

 

Writers: Margie Kraft Kindt & Matt Kindt

Artist, Colorist & Cover Artist: Matt Kindt

Letterer: Sophia Hilmes

Editors: Daniel Chabon, Chuck Howitt-Lease & Misha Gehr

Designers: Patrick Satterfield & Matt Kindt

Digital Art Technician: Tyler Li

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics LLC

Price: $9.99

Release Date: August 14, 2024

 

Sam and his aunt solve puzzles. They started the tradition when Sam came to live with her fourteen years ago. But can their love of word puzzles—or nuzzles, as they dub them—help the globe-hopping amateur detectives solve the mystery surrounding a murder and antique chairs? Let’s book our airplane tickets to Paris, leap into Gilt Frame #1, and see!

 

Story

Sam's parents abandoned him. They sought the truth about themselves by joining a cult. Then they disappeared, leaving their child with nothing but a walking stick. Sam loves rare books. He collects literary works that were personalized and discarded by other authors. Sam also likes Hawaiian shirts. But he loves his aunt and would do anything for her. Even if that means accompanying her on an unnecessary trip to France.

 

Meredith married a controlling man. She had money, but she lacked fulfillment. Meredith accepted her lot until Sam came into her life. Meridith and Arthur had purchased an adjacent apartment, so she moved Sam into it. Arthur didn’t care that the boy’s parents abandoned him. He didn’t care that Sam hid in the apartment each evening because Arthur disliked children. He just wanted Sam gone. Instead, Meredith gave Arthur the boot and raised Sam as her own.

 

In Gilt Frame #1, Meredith and Sam relax by the beach. They toast their success in solving a murder in Paris. Then Margie Kraft Kindt and Matt Kindt reveal Meredith and Sam’s history and what brought them to Paris. Aunt Merry and her nephew Sammy exhibit unique interests and personality quirks as they pursue clues involving a poem, a world fair, and a woman in black. Meredith and Sam’s adventures evoke Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy mysteries and The Adventures Of Tintin by Hergé.

 

Amid Meredith's search for historic gilt frames, the truth behind two French chairs, and Sam's love of stories, the duo's sense of family and mutual devotion diverts and entertains. Blank pages separate scenes, while artsy title pages mark chapters, denoting times and locations. The double-length story may take as long to read as several superhero comics, yet Gilt Frame #1 leaves you wanting more. Post-story extras include newspaper clippings and a poem that Sam's dislike for the literary form only allows the Cliff Notes version during their adventures in Paris. 

 

Art

Matt Kindt opens with an extreme closeup of a knife embedded in a man's back. Then he pulls back to show Meredith reading a news article on her phone. She sits in a beach lounger beside Sam, toasting their success in a tropical locale. Kindt then rewinds the clock a week with extreme closeups of what appears to be a gun firing and a knife chopping fingers before slowly pulling back to reveal Meredith and Sam working in the kitchens of their respective apartments. When he portrays Meredith's final argument with Arthur, he rips the roof off a multistory building and shows the couple enter rooms and walk through the hallways linking their two apartments.

 

Matt Kindt brushes watercolors on gray paper in a carefree manner that enhances the emotional resonance of scenes. His limited palette often juxtaposes contrasting colors in a relaxed and pleasing way. The colors brighten when Sam remembers his hippie parents. The colors grow more restrained as Kindt provides an entry from an auction house catalog on stark white paper. The brushes leave blots, and background colors seep into characters, giving Gilt Frame #1 a homespun visual appeal.

 

Sophia Hilmes provides small, lowercase black letters with ample spacing between lines of text. While the font has a handwritten look, the dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes appear too perfect to be hand drawn. Aside from the food preparation scenes, no enlarged dialogue or sound effects heighten the events in Gilt Frame #1. Newspaper clippings and typeset print on browned parchment reveal the folklore surrounding a century-old theft. Thanks to Dark Horse Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

An abandoned boy who loves stories, the strange case of his vanishing parents, and his aunt’s love of antiques, travel, and solving puzzles transports two amateur sleuths across continents in Gilt Frame #1. Amid poems, clues, and the bustling markets of Paris, the triune focus on one person’s name only adds to the fun.

 

Rating 9/10

 

For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.