Comic Review: Fell volume 1: Feral City

Welcome to Snowtown.

Police detective Richard Fell, for whatever nefarious or tragic reasons not yet quite revealed by issue 9, has been reassigned to a homicide detective position in the malignantly dilapidated and severely undermanned snowtown police district, just over the bridge from his old job.

Just over the bridge, but it might as well be a country or even a lifetime away. Snowtown is virtually a purgatory, where crime and poverty feed into eachother to create a dark but apathic cityscape where hope has burned out long ago, and where the only ones who thrive are the predators.

We are kept in the dark about the reasons for Fell's transfer, other than a few vague hints that seem standard but might also be just so much more.

He arrives in the grey squalor of his new district but for whatever reason, whatever strength of character or whatever quest for redemption that might be burning deep inside, he manages not to let the place drag him down to its level, and soon he becomes the righteous protector of Snowtown's down-trodden.

 

Though he is a lawman through and through, he will bend every inch of that law wherever it lets those who deserve its judgement off the noose. And where those who need justice can find none, he will stand. Because Fell has, above all, his eyes firmly fixed on aiding his fellow man. On helping those who can not help themselves, those who are beaten down and crushed by the hopelessness of life and the cruelty of others.

It's about the sickening, nauseating dark heart of humanity, and of how one man can make a difference.

Every issue stands on its own and there isn't a series spanning arc but whatever little there is, really is quite good.

Templesmith's art is visibly better than it was in the 30 Days of Night stories, with a broader palette of colours that nonetheless relies on dirty tones of grit and shadow, all the while conveying a pervading mood of downtrodden misery and an atmosphere of decay.
The faces and the subtlety of his expressions have never looked better and with a minimum of effort manage to convey a world of emotion.

But occasionally subtlety can take its smooth little corpus and jump out of the window to make way for the occasional moment of violence in a random street brawl or tense stand-off.

I love this comic. I've been wanting to give it a review for a while and now here we are.

Go buy this comic if  you're interested by the above or if the art looks good to you. You won't be disappointed.

Ooooor, maybe you will, because there is in fact a small problem.

Written by Warren Ellis and with art by the brilliant Ben Templesmith,  Fell's most predominant claim to fame lies in that it started out as an experimental format for the comic book medium. Primarily the draw was in in selling a cheaper, shorter comic book that with each 18-page issue could tell a reasonably concise stand-alone story, that nonetheless could slot into a larger whole, with the catch that each individual issue, regardless of its overall place in the series, could be an easy jumping-on point for newcomers. Probably not accidentally just like the growing inundation of procedurally based crime stories or detective soap operas on television, which for some reason still manage to grab all the attention while better shows languish by the wayside...

After the ninth issue the series ended, or well, technically it went on a hiatus, but I think that almost ten years later we don't need to mince words about this anymore.
The reason for this premature ending to this particular comic is something that has been known to happen in this increasingly digital age (and don't I know that as well, with my recent pc troubles and all): a computer crash resulting in the loss of Ellis' scripts for the rest of the series.

Similarly, it reminds me of Glen Cook's (what was it?) 25 year hiatus in the Dread Empire series. Though there the loss of his manuscript was on account of someone literally breaking into his house and stealing it, never to be seen again, not at all like a computer error.
Except also, that story might give a glimpse of hope as Glen Cook did eventually get around to finishing his series, albeit in a very much shortened and yet acceptably satisfying manner.
Going by that precedent there might just be hope yet for detective Fell. let's just hope it isn't going to take quite as long.