Books: Fell

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Fell
Vol 1: Snowtown
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Ben Templesmith
2007



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

"Fell" - a nice description of the tone (hopeless, despairing and bleak) and the name of the main character: a homicide detective with a murky past and new posting in the permanently down-on-it's-luck city of Snowtown: where murder, voodoo and mannequin-deviancy are all commonplace. In the same cold vein as: Cracker, Touch of Frost, Taggart, etc - the cases all come in bite-sized instalments - even if the don't always work out in the way you would expect. The writing from Warren Ellis is predictably sharp (the interrogation issue is pretty nifty) and slightly off kilter (suicide bombers appearing in the last place you would expect) and compliments Ben Templesmith's very dark, smokyartwork. So far there's only one volume (it's been "on hiatus" since 2008 - something to do with Ellis' computer dying on him) - but what there is so far is well worth trying out and getting lost in if you're looking for something to make you shiver down to your bones. Modern noir with several twists of gruesomeness and horror.

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Links: Comics Worth Reading Review, Focused Totality Review of #3.

Further reading: Desolation Jones, 30 Days of Night, Transmetropolitan, Violent Cases, Chew.

Profiles: Warren Ellis.

All comments welcome.