Customer Reviews
Why Comics are Braver and Better than Movies - By: Simon Hall, 20 Dec 2007 
Warren Ellis is not the nastiest & sickest comics writer out there - thank God - but there are things about the human condition that clearly get under his skin in the middle of the night. Please, please, please can we have some more?
Ellis's character Richard Fell has a dark secret but a good nature, & it is his emerging humanity & his relationship with a waitress which marks this out from so much similar material. Ben Templesmith's art also takes this to another level, compared to some of Ellis's other work such as Scars, where the drawing style undermines the seriousness of the subject matter: here, Templesmith's ragged edges & weird mixing of the real & surreal match the adult tone of the material.
This is the first time I've ever finished a comic & gone straight back to the first page to read it alll over again. Can't reallly say more than that.
Dark, slightly surreal and very engaging - By: Robert Grist, 17 Jul 2007 
A strange one to review, this, as my initial feelings were a little uncertain as to the quality of this graphic novel. But, after reading the first two chapters (issues, reallly) of eight, I found myself happily floating through this very noire-ish world & eager to follow the footsteps of Detective Richard Fell as he strode his way through Snowtown, meeting absurd & often nauseating characters & wading through the depressing & seemingly hopeless lives of this decrepit City's inhabitants. Fell himself, a man with an almost sixth-sense like ability to 'read' those he encounters (think a more intense Derren Brown), is the only real shining light in this dank & dour place, & his slow but certain approach to doing the right thing obviously has a delicately positive effect on the damaged people around him, so it is a tale of hope, ultimately.
Ben Templesmith's artwork is quite unique. There's nothing of the muscle-bound figures of other graphic novels here. His characters are straight out of the real world & the depiction of Snowtown is as bleak as a Northern Industrial town from the 1970s. Colours are muted & there is an almost ever-present feeling of smog in the city. It's the perfect accompaniment to Warren Ellis's storyline & a dark joy to behold.
BUY THIS EVEN IF YOU DON'T READ COMICS - By: Mr. I. Everitt, 21 May 2007 I can't recommend this comic highly enough! I have collected the comic books for around a year now & the fact that they have released a collection of the first issues in this series is fantastic news.
The Stories deal with the happenings of a feral town callled Snowtown. And more particularly the daily struggle of policeman Richard Fell, a once big time cop in the big city who now finds himself stuck in a twisted backwater town where the police force seem to be there only to keep the population figures up.
Ellis manages to blend real events into these tales, which adds a new dimension to these cleverly layered stories, that some times seem too garish to be true. Templesmith's art perfectly matches Ellis' stories, & paints a haunting & dreary place that could suck the life & soul out of anyone. The caractors are well thought out & their stories are as gripping as the latest case Fell is working on.
The story & art are dark & eerie, conveying a creepiness not often found in comics.
If you are unsure whether to buy this don't be, so great is this work that the original 1st issue has been re-printed no fewer than 4 times & the second has also. This is to become a true classic in it's genre & will set a benchmark that other comics will try to aspire to.
