Bifrons was an angel who left Heaven alongside Lucifer. Now he's an Earl of Hell, the equivalent of middle management. Stuck making cursed geometry textbooks (redundant) for an unimaginative boss (Mammon), who won't give his idea of taking the broken shards of evil in the souls they break and combining them a proper hearing, because it's too complicated.
So, nerts to all that! Frons, and his assistant Pazuzu, will start their own realm of damnation, with blackjack, and hookers! Actually he decides to slip away to Earth and start a life coaching agency. Frons reasons, if he can help enough souls, perhaps God will forgive him and let him back into Heaven.
Unfortunately, millennia spent in Hell torturing humans, preceded by however long in Heaven, with no concept of happiness or despair, has left Frons ill-suited to the task of actually helping humans. As Pazuzu puts it at one point, she has no moral opinions. I still don't know if she means she has no opinions that are moral, or that, when it comes to matters of morality, she simply has no opinions, period. Immoral versus amoral, neither is perhaps the best foundation for helping people with their problems.
What's touching is Frons and Zuzu really try. They're not incapable of empathy or concern. Their first client is a 16-year-old girl whose parents regard her as an organ farm to keep her older, terminally ill, sister clinging to life. Nothing Wendy does gains her parents' affection, or even their notice. All that matters is she's available to provide spare parts for a girl who, based on what Gudsnuk shows us in both the present and flashbacks, will never be more than a pale, non-responsive, sickly shell.
Zuzu and Frons agree Wendy's parents are terrible, and it's lousy of them to make her feel like she should want to be sick, because then they might care about her, or to treat her like she's only worth loving as long as she lets them cut out parts of herself. But then Zuzu mentions they should let the sister die. Frons adds that the parents deserve to die, too. Then Wendy could inherit all their money and this big house! Annnnnnnnnnd, Wendy kills her parents and sister that night, damning her soul. Whoops
But now Frons and Zuzu have a new receptionist, who is happy to get room and board working for a couple of demons. Win some, lose some. Mostly lose, to be honest. Their subsequent attempt to help a man be a better husband so he can get his family back ends disastrously, and while their next client seems fulfilled, the tools they give him to accomplish that result in the death and damnation of dozens.
It's an odd mini-series, as it feels like Gudsnuk ended it early. A detective looks into the disappearance of Wendy and her family (whose bodies Frons hid in the graves of people who died 150 years ago), and visits their office the same time Mammon shows up. That's in the last issue, so despite the cop's clear suspicion that something is wrong - Wendy's not very good at lying on the fly - nothing comes of it. Frons strikes up a friendship with a local priest, Father Angelo, who looks into the idea of whether a demon could be redeemed, not realizing he's talking to a fallen angel. It felt like Gudsnuk was leaning towards Frons having a crush on Angelo, but maybe that's just me spending too much time on the Internet.
Despite all the death and damnation, it's a touching story. Frons gathers this peculiar little group around him of people he tried to help, to varying degrees of success. He gave up his lyre to get Pazuzu out of a miserable existence as Beleth's assistant 500 years ago. He offers Wendy a place after she commits triple homicide. Pazuzu may not really care about helping humans in general, but likes Frons as a boss and wants to help him, and forms an instant attachment to Wendy. Wendy, while being understandably anxious about her situation, does her best to help and forms a bond with their other assistant, an influencer who died in prison and whose ghost inhabits a speaker box.
There's a bit of light at the very end, as Frons stops trying to solve his clients' problems with magic, and help them come to a measure of peace with their circumstances. I feel like they tried that with Sergio in issue 2. I guess the difference between that and how they worked with Delilah in issue 4 was, they didn't show Sergio that the work he was doing on himself had value, even if he didn't get what he desired. So, when it didn't work out how he hoped, Sergio saw no value in anything and reacted really badly.
And yet, I also found it hilarious. Zuzu's glee at things like keeping the possessions of bodies they dispose of, alternating with her frustration at yet another human messing things up. The third issue, Frons decides to just give the client a Chimp's Paw, so he can wish for what will make him feel fulfilled. This is a terrible idea, but Pazuzu is stunned when it goes disastrously. (That was another end left dangling, she never got back around to killing Max.) The lies they try to concoct to keep the detective from suspecting anything. That skull-faced person who appeared in a burst of fire was actually an illusionist! A client! In demonic makeup!
I'm probably not supposed to find Sergio's end funny, but something about the sharp turn it takes, the way he turns his love into something destructive, while Frons, Zuzu and Wendy look on in horror, then scramble for damage control, cracks me up. Gudsnuk's art style is tailored towards those broad, exaggerated expressions, so comical dismay or anger is pretty easy.
She often adds words that describe what the person is trying to express, almost like sound effects. Instead of BIFF or POW, you get "inspire" in rainbow colors, or "unmoved" in lowercase, dark black lettering. I'm not sure it's necessary; her art and dialogue are good enough to convey the feeling, but Gudsnuk seems to like it. Maybe she feels it adds impact?
I don't know if she ever intends to return to it, but I'd like to see more. I think there was some tension in whether Frons could actually stick to the formula he found in the final issue, or if he'd surrender to temptation and take the quicker route, or frustration and abandon the project entirely.
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