Matt Kindt has team with his mother, Margie Kraft Kindt for the comic series Gilt Frame, which sees its second issue released this week. Together the two Kindts have created an eccentric and electrifying crime thriller starring the most unlikely detective duo in the history of murder mysteries. The 3-issue whodunit is being published at Dark Horse Comics through Kindt’s boutique imprint Flux House. 

A classic whodunit that spans the globe from Paris to Hawaii to Montenegro, Gilt Frame stars Sam, an orphan in his early twenties, and his well-off Aunt Merry who has an outsized appetite for antiques, travel, and solving crimes. Sam was adopted by his aunt years ago and together they have solved some of the most notorious murders in the world. Now their latest Parisian adventure is cut short when they stumble upon a murder scene so bizarre that only a raging psychopath could have produced it. To solve this crime, Sam and Merry will have to wrestle with jewel thieves, art-forgers, gun-runners, the century-old ghost of the woman in black, a lost puppy, and a master French detective who just might solve the crime before they do.

We have an exclusive essay by Kindt about hos his childhood impacts him today and the make believe crime scenes that helped lead to Gilt Frame.

GILT FRAME

Matt Kindt
September 2024

When I was a kid books and art supplies were treated like food and shelter. Essentials. If we wanted a book or a comic – and we could afford it…we got it. It’s something that always stuck with me. If we wanted candy or toys or some other nonsense, then we had to pay for it with our allowance or get a job. 

I remember years later, in college, going to the comic shop with my brother. I had twenty dollars to cover food and comics. That was the first time I remember having to make a choice. Do I get something at Burger King after picking up comics or do I get more comics and no fast food. So I got more comics and a glass of water at Burger King. I’d rather skip a meal than skip  a week of comics.

When I was eleven years old, I woke up to a crime scene. I walked down the hall to the living room and the entire room was in disarray. Footprints on the rug. Furniture tipped over.  Mysterious drops of something (blood?).  The place was a mess. My mom came up behind me and smiled. Watched me look around. She’d made a “crime scene” for me to decipher. I was supposed to figure out what had happened. With a little help, I figured it out. [Spoiler: my dad had stolen cookies from a cookie jar.]

That same summer, for some reason my dad had gotten these big blue water guns. One for each of us. We filled them up in the kitchen and immediately began squirting each other. The fight spread throughout the house. All of us running around from room to room and squirting each other. At one point my mom went to the sink and pulled out that hose next to the faucet and just began spraying everyone. That ended the fight. Everyone drenched and laughing.

Our house was structured. I remember my mom had a meal plan and we knew what was for dinner for the entire week. But within that structure was something else. There was a freedom to explore and go a little nuts. The idea was planted that structure serves a purpose but always be thinking of ways to work outside of the constraints.

Gilt Frame is a seemingly ordinary “whodunnit” murder mystery that gets turned on its head. It asks you to think outside of the structure of what you’re used to reading. 

I’ve taken that to heart over the years – trying to push comic books into new territory. Using structure and breaking and remaking it. I think Gilt Frame is a perfect capsule of all those life lessons. What better person to collaborate with than my mom?  I’ve spent my life trying to make comic books that are as essential as food and shelter.  That’s just how I was raised.