I just finished getting up-to-date with Fell, a comic written by Warren Ellis and Illustrated by Ben Templesmith.
It is works like this that make me want to read comics. I was turned onto Ellis by my friend Marc (of This Blog Is Of No Intrest To You). I started reading Transmetropolitian (also by Ellis) years ago and hated it. I'm not sure if it was my irrational hatred of comics or that Transmet actually sucked, but it took reading Watchmen and shitting myself to start reading again.
Fell follows a detective (named, if you can believe it, Detective Fell) in fictional Snowtown--a gritty, hell-hole of a city with "three and-a-half" detectives (one has no legs). Detective Fell is a Vincent D'Onofrio-in-Law and Order CI-type character--ridiculously smart but troubled--without being half as annoying. The cast is full of typical Ellis sexual deviants, misanthropes, and anti-heroes. And of course, there are Ben Templesmith's illustrations to reckon with, which are breathtaking and anything but typical. His ingenious use of color is hauntingly beautiful, and the bleeding, hazy look enhances Ellis's sense of the surreality of Snowtown. Finally, the full page layout gives the feeling that the illustrations are done with a page, rather than a panel, unit. The effect is that each spread is greater than the sum of its parts, clearly crafted to instill a sense of wholeness and interconnectedness perfect from Fell.
Marc, I'm sure, will rip me a new one for something in the review, so have at it, buddy. I'm not sure I'm cut out to review comics, but you can't say I've changed since the time of reading only Manga and calling comics a post-modern masturbatory session for smelly thirty-somethings and little boys.
I strongly recommend grabbing this one. I think the trade is out, and it's called Feral City or something.
Also, you can read the first issue for free, here. Enjoy.
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