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Marked is our newest mini-comic.  Think Sin City where the monsters aren't humans.

story & words - Brian John Mitchell
artwork - Jeremy Johnson

Reviews:
*Marked #1*
Jeremy Johnson handles the art chores on MARKED, one of the more commercial concepts Mitchell has produced. A retired demon hunter (with a secret of his own) begins investigating the death of his girlfriend’s sister, which sets him back on a path for justice. This book is very high concept, and the ending leaves it wide open for further adventures of the main character. Johnson’s work is a little on the inconsistent side, vacillating between easy to follow and somewhat obtuse in its choices of angle and p.o.v. If there are to be further installments, that’s something that would need to be worked on.
~ Marc Masters, Comics Waiting Room

…speaking of mini-comics, Marked takes the terminology very seriously and gives us a fun little book that’s literally about the size of a book of matches. It’s full of the same visceral images found on the cover in the form of ghouls, danger, and violence. The layouts remind me of some of the original Tijuana Bibles with a single wide open panel adorned by typed-looking text on the bottom of the page. Looking at the single images, Johnson uses shadow very nicely in the outdoor sequences, and especially on facial details like obscured eyes or stray wisps of hair. Taken as a whole though, the art doesn’t flow well page to page, with different slightly related images being strewn together, held in place only with the narrated text on the bottom. I like that Mitchell’s story isn’t afraid of violence or disturbing images. It never plays as gratuitous, simply a writer who doesn’t shy away from the story he wants to tell and has a clear picture of it in his mind. It shows confidence, which is always an attractive quality. On the down side, I have a couple of quibbles with the text. The first is the use of the ampersand, “&,” which is a little jarring and questionable in spots. When you begin a sentence with it, it really disrupts the flow of the text. The second is use of the term “prey.” I’ve never seen it used this way, but two examples go like this: “for a vulnerable prey” and “an easy prey.” I think those phrases could have omitted needless words and simply been “for vulnerable prey” and “easy prey.” While the original use might technically be grammatically correct, it’s extremely clunky sounding. Marked ends with a twisty cliffhanger and despite some small glitches, I’m intrigued by the size, reasonable price point, and plethora of additional titles available at: www.silbermedia.com/comics. Grade A-.
~ Justin Giampaoli, Poopsheet

This book is the newest series from Silber - yet apparently, one of the author’s first, having been through a myriad of different artists before reaching this point in time. It’s a fairly good story, but one that invokes “rape” right near the beginning, which pulled me right out a bit. There’s just too much rape in comics nowadays, I swear.
Anyway, the rest of the story (concerning a man whose mission in life is to kill monsters) is pretty solid, but definitely reads like an earlier work. While newer offerings have slimmed down the text content, this one remains very verbose, almost to a fault. Still, it’s not a bad read... just one that’s not quite to my tastes.
~ Brandon Schatz, Comixtreme

Hey, why not one more series?  He already has 4 going strong.  If you make comics and this guy doesn’t make you think that maybe you should be a little more productive, I don’t know what would do it.  Productive and consistently entertaining, all while using different artists for different projects, is impressive no matter how you look at it.  In this issue an old monster fighter comes out of retirement after his girlfriend’s sister is brutally murdered at a local park.  No, I’m not sure what being a monster fighter entails either, but I’ll bet we learn that over the course of the series.  Anyway, he manages to lure the murderers out of hiding by pretending to be a drunk (i.e. dousing himself with booze), but the fight doesn’t go well and he’s forced to take a desperate and drastic action.  I get the fact that I’ve been praising all these books for months now, so this probably won’t have much impact, but this comic sings.  The cadence of the dialogue, the fight scene (even with it being all scrunched up in this tiny comic, it didn’t suffer a bit), and that ending were all pitch perfect.  These comics are all ridiculously affordable, and you’d have a hard time going wrong trying any of them.  Today this has the potential to be my favorite of the bunch, but talk to me tomorrow and I’ll go with a different series.  That speaks to some serious range, and if he’s able to do another five series at this high level I say go for it.
~ Kevin Bramer, Optical Sloth

Marked is a departure from Brian’s other work. Yet, at the same time, it falls victim to the author’s own personal clichés.
Brian John Mitchell seems to use the “damsel in distress” model frequently. In particular, sexual abuse and rape are very prevalent (violence in general is prevalent in his work).
Point is, I like the overall concept — I’m just sick of seeing the author write male characters fighting for the honor of sexually abused women who are often often portrayed as miscalculating and defenseless.
The art here by Jeremy Johnson is very solid. It’s got a traditional superhero flair to it, which feels very fitting.
The excellent concept I mentioned before is part superhero, part modern horror anime, and part MTV’s The Head — “He” is retired monster hunter / demon killer that gets thrust back into the business and ends up in some deep @#$%.
It’s a good hook and I look forward to Marked #2.
~ Nick Marino, AudioShocker

Links:
Jeremy Johnson - website
Brian John Mitchell - xo mini-comic
Brian John Mitchell - Lost Kisses mini-comic
Brian John Mitchell - QRD interview zine
Brian John Mitchell - band Remora