One Fell Swoop

Fell Volume 1 Feral City

Apparently I am the only one who isn’t familiar with Warren Ellis.  Great comic god that he is, amazing prose author that he is, social commentary butterfly that he is, and I had no idea who the guy was. 

Well, in one Fell swoop, I got schooled.

 Fell Volume 1 Feral City is a gritty graphic novel that follows Detective Richard Fell through the streets of his new beat in Snowtown, a place where there are more murders than snowflakes.  It has its secrets too, but Fell finds himself strangely at home because, hey, “everybody is hiding something.”

I found the story much like a car wreck on the side of the freeway- gory but I can’t turn away.  The cast of characters are fresh: the Vietnamese bar-owner girlfriend who brands Fell in the first couple of pages with a mysterious symbol meant to protect him, the criminals who kill for what seems to be the sport of it, and then there’s Fell himself, who you know isn’t telling you everything, and you love him for it. 

Storyline: good. Characters: well-written.  Illustrations: vague and blurry.  Every graphic novel will have its own visual feel to it, and there’s a less-is-more approach here.  However, in this binded collection of the first seven issues, the last graphic of each issue as well as the cover art are more vibrant and detailed than the interior of the story.  Just an observation. 

And I love love love the last issue’s use of sticky notes to tell the story.  I thought it was a bit detached from the first six issues, though the stickies do make an appearance or two.  By the last sticky-noted issue, we see Fell through tough nights on the streets, with murders and pimps and floaters filling the time between shifts.  And while Fell is hiding from something we don’t yet know about, he still has a grip on the reality of humanity, that it still exists somewhere outside the confines of Snowtown.  And Detective Richard Fell reminds even Snowtown’s most forgotten of citizens that “none of you are nothing to me.” 

Dudes will enjoy the action and the quiet kickassness of Fell.  I enjoyed the incorporation of Vietnamese culture, namely the dead fetuses hanging around to ward off evil- a storyline that never quite came full circle, maybe we’ll see it again in later issues? 

I recommend Fell, and I give it it’s share of stars (see below). 

Now if I could only get my hands on The Stuff of Legend (ahem: Santa or my sweet sweet PopCulture boys…)