A whole lot of people know Phil Hester as a rather great penciller and a consummate professional of the industry we all know and love. More and more though he is becoming well known for his writing talents and for all the right reasons. His work on series like Black Terror and The Darkness have garnered him a whole lot of acclaim but in my experience is that his smaller and under-noticed titles are the ones that really set him apart as an innovative and incredible creator. His books like Antoine Sharp: The Atheist, The Wretch, The Coffin, Deep Sleeper, Golly!, and Firebreather (which is actually possibly going to become a cartoon on Cartoon Network or some nonsense) have caught and held my interest in ways unimaginable and sadly they are (in the cases of the mini-series) overlooked or (in the cases of the ongoings) infrequently published. But that doesn't seem to deter Phil one single second from creating amazing works that aren't necessarily in the greatest spotlight when it comes to the public. 

All that preamble brings me to the book that I have come here to talk about today: The Anchor. Phil's new book from BOOM! Studios has a whole lot going for it and has been received incredibly well by both the critics and the readership. The series follows "Clem" the mysterious nigh invulnerable man who appears to fight off the monster that has appeared seemingly from no where to wreak havoc and destruction down on Iceland. The story goes on to explain that he is really fighting two wars on two fronts. The first in Hell where his soul fights back wave after wave of demons and the damned and remains impervious to damage as his earthly body suffers the pains of the damage inflicted. The second takes place on Earth when one of those demons slips past his defenses and makes it to our world. So while his Soul suffers no damage from his endless war in Hell his body randomly sprouts wounds as he does his best to beat back the creatures from the underworld. The series reveals that he has been at this for quite a long time and might well be the result of a monk's answered prayers from centuries ago.

The series is drawn by Brian Churilla who has worked on a few other monster intensive series like The Engineer and We Kill Monsters and his art has grown to a great extent here in this series and is reminiscent of the work of creators like Eric Powell, Mike Mignola, and Guy Davis and in all the good ways that one can be compared to those masters of the craft. The series is a great read and involves all the kind of stuff that fans of books like Hellboy, B.P.R.D., The Marquis, or any other of Hester's works will love.