Of my many fears, collapsing bridges are most recent. When stuck in traffic on a highway fly-over, it’s hard not to think of it splintering and cracking apart while trapped in my hatchback. When faced with the inevitable, our minds simply don’t know what to do to escape. This loss of control appears in the first issue of Richard Blake’s series Hexagon Bridge. 

Humanity can traverse different dimensions through a doorway known only as The Bridge. Two cartographers are sent across The Bridge into the unknown. As is expected in a story like this, they disappear. One, Elena, is confronted with a machine-man in a suit after being teleported from a frozen wasteland. While he’s genial, there’s an edge of menace to him. The other cartographer, Jacob, is alive. But just barely. Hung in a suspended state, he exists in the basement of a little suburban neighborhood that looks like it’s being built right in front of us. No one can see where Elena or Jacob are after they crossed The Bridge—except for their daughter, Adley. 

What is this other dimension? What happened to Elena and Jacob? How can Adley see where her parents are? What is anyone going to do now? These questions are the best kinds of hooks for a first issue. For a first issue, this breadcrumbing is essential to ensure readers want to come back. The situations are just odd enough that we can’t see a clear path from where the characters are now to where they could be to escape and we get just enough of their relationships to actually care about seeing them escape. 

Hexagon Bridge is a short series. At only five issues once the series hits it conclusion, it doesn’t have to linger too long. And it knows this. It’s able to pack in a dense amount of story beats just in its first issue without over-explaining its world or characters. We glimpse just enough of things on either side of The Bridge to have an idea of what’s happening from this beginning, but we already want to see how far it will lead us. 

Get excited. Get over.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.