Tag Archives: snowfall

Around the Tubes

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star-wars-force-awakens-official-poster-691x1024It’s a new week and that means more interviews, reviews, and more! Convention season is underway as well as big budget movies hitting theaters! What are you looking forward to in 2016? Sound off in the comments.

While you contemplate that, here’s some comic book news and reviews from around the web.

Around the Tubes

The Beat – Marvel to adapt The Force Awakens with Wendig and Ross – Not too shocking. It is shocking it’s been this long.

The Outhousers – Using Their Noodle: Marvel Teams Up With Ippudo For Ramen – Interesting. Would love to see what gets turned down.

Huffington Post – Graphic Novel Captures What It’s Like to Be Gay in Iran: Part 2 – Great to see comics like this.

GamePolitics – Nintendo-claimed video a “crystal clear case of fair use” says EFF attorney – Hopefully Nintendo backs down.

Kotaku – Steel-Hard Skin – A good read.

Comics Alliance – DC Rebirth: Is Geoff Johns Selling Out DC’s Future in Pursuit of its Past? – Thoughts?

 

Around the Tubes Reviews

Comic Attack – Power Man and Iron Fist #1

Talking Comics – Snowfall #1

Talking Comics – Zodiac Starforce #1-4

Review: Snowfall #1

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In my experience, taking a “flier” on a new book you’ve attached no pre-conceived expectations to going in can pay off nicely. Right now, in fact, my pull list is populated with a number of series that I’m absolutely loving — from American Monster  to Hip-Hop Family Tree to Last Sons Of America to The Violent — that are the work of creators who I was either “down on” at one point and decided to give another chance to, or whose prior work (assuming there even was any) I was completely unfamiliar with.  I like the new. I like the unexpected. If I want the familiar, well — there’s always “The Big Two” for that.

Writer Joe Harris and artist Martin Morazzo are not, of course, new names — at least not for those of us who read their Image Comics series Great Pacific — nor are they creators who are in need of a second chance from yours truly, but still : when I first heard about their then-forthcoming, now-arrived new title Snowfall, I was in no way sure what to expect. It sounded — and judging by the few preview pages that were made available in recent months also looked and read — like something dramatically different to their prior work, and so my interest was piqued. Like I said, often the unfamiliar can yield surprisingly good results.

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Ya know what, though? Not always. And unfortunately that’s the case here.

None of the blame for why this extra-sized first issue (a nice value with 32 pages of story and art for $3.99 — full disclosure compels me to also inform you that I purchased my copy, no “review freebie” here) doesn’t work should rest on the shoulders of the artistic team, though. Morazzo and colorist-on-the-rise Kelly Fitzpatrick both go about their business splendidly, in fact. And the set-up that Harris presents us with involving a future Earth (the year being 2045, to be precise) that has seen some sort of “climate collapse” resulting in the desertification of much of the planet and the fall of the United States/subsequent rise of a new open corporate oligarchy called the “Cooperative States Of America” is an interesting enough bit of preliminary “world-building.” What he so clearly forgets to include, though, is any character-building, and so the search for the so-called “White Wizard” — some guy who has the power to make it snow and might be a terrorist, a freedom fighter, a mad scientist, you name it — falls well and truly flat.

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Don’t get me wrong — I feel bad that the various folks we’re introduced to here have to live in some sort of shitty dystopian society — but I don’t feel anything for any of them individually and frankly have a hard time discerning from events as presented who our main protagonists are even supposed to be, so completely one-note and un-involving are the lot of ’em.  Memo to Joe Harris : first issues are supposed to grab you with more than just an attractive price point, they’re supposed to make you interested enough in the proceedings to come back for more. Nothing on offer here manages to accomplish that most basic of tasks.

Obviously, Image has a reasonable amount of faith in these guys, and perhaps we should too — Great Pacific, after all, was something of a “slow burn” itself — but I’ve got (bad pun coming, you’ve been warned) cold feet already. A “slow burn” I can absolutely handle no problem — but this book feels like it’s in a deep freeze right out of the gate.

Story: Joe Harris Art: Martin Morazzo Color: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Story: 2 Art: 8 Overall: 5 Recommendation : Pass

Graphic Policy’s Top Comic Picks this Week!

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Avengers_Standoff_Welcome_to_Pleasant_Hill_1_CoverWednesdays are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in!

We’re bringing back something we haven’t done for a while, what the team thinks. Our contributors are choosing up to five books each week and why they’re choosing the books.

Find out what folks think below, and what comics you should be looking out for this Wednesday.

Alex

Top Pick: Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior #4 (Valiant) – I’ve been enjoying this series so far, and while it hasn’t captured me like some other Valiant books (or Old Man Logan), it’s still a damn fine series that’s got a very interesting take on immortality,and the Earth’s Fist an Steel.

Wraithborn #1 (Benitez Productions) – I know nothing about this series, but the cover looks awesome. I’m picking it up for that reason alone.

 

Paul

Top Pick: Extraordinary X-Men #7 (Marvel) – This book has been delivering with every issue; lots of action, a kick ass team line up and Humberto Ramos’ art is just icing on the cake.  Plus I’m looking forward to finding out what made Nightcrawler’s trolley jump the tracks.

Avengers Standoff Welcome to Pleasant Hill #1 (Marvel) – I am very curious about this title; a quiet, run of the mill town where everyone knows everyone, but there’s something hiding beneath the façade.  And is that a cosmic cube on the cover?  The upcoming ‘Standoff’ event starts here.

Uncanny Inhumans #5 (Marvel) – A new story arc “The Quiet Room” starts in this issue, and that alone has me curious when it involves a character whose slightest whisper can shatter a mountain.  Brandon Peterson is taking on the art duties for this book, and I am looking forward to seeing his take on the characters.

 

Brett

Top Pick: Power Man and Iron Fist #1 (Marvel) – Written by David Walker with art by Sanford Greene, this classic team-u is back! This is a comic I’ve been excited for, and waiting for, since it was announced and I can’t wait to see how these two creators handle them.

Race For the Moon (Canton Street Press) – This is a reprint that features sci-fi stories with artwork by Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Al Williamson, and Bob Powell. I honestly didn’t know about it until I looked a this week’s releases, but it sounds awesome.

Revenger Vol. 1 (Bergen Street Press) – Collecting Charles Forsman’s self-published series. If you haven’t read it in individual issues, now’s your chance to pick it up and see what you’ve been missing. When all hope is lost, and those who meant the most have been ripped away, there is only revenge.

Snowfall #1 (Image Comics) – Joe Harris and Martin Morazzo’s new sci-fi ongoing series kicks off with an oversized debut. It’s 2045, the climate is messed up, a new corporate government is in charge and one man wages a weather war against the system. Sounds awesome.

Wraithborn #1 (Benitez Productions) – A new series from artist Joe Benitez and writer Marcia Chen. I love Benitez’s Lady Mechanika, so really want to check this one out.

 

Mr. H

Top Pick: Avengers Standoff: Welcome to Pleasant Hill #1 (Marvel) – So of the big two Marvel has been the one handling it better with their event books. Secret Wars was stellar. I know Civil War 2 is a coming but I hope we are not in for another retread. Honestly I’m just giving this one the benefit of the doubt. That and Mark Bagley.

Amazing Spider-Man #8 (Marvel) – This comic has just been fun since go. I like the whole Zodiac storyline and really been enjoying how Slott writes Peter, him and the Parker Industry staff are the highlights of the book. Nothing grand or spectacular but a very reliable book every month. It’s nice.

Poison Ivy: Circle of Life and Death #2 (DC Comics) – She’s sultry, she’s sexy and she’s wanted for murder. It is high time Ms. Ivy has gotten her own monthly. I’m not the biggest supporter of this title but I will in the hopes she gets her own monthly. Scott Snyder please… fingers crossed.

 

Madison

Top Pick: Bitch Planet #7 (Image Comics) – Bitch Planet finally seems to be back on a regular publishing schedule, which is exciting because the story is really getting good. A must-read for feminists, not only for the story, but also for the backmatter, which contains feminist essays.

Sex Criminals #14 (Image Comics) – Sex Criminals is a hilarious comic about time-stopping orgasms (literally time-stopping). I’m not sure if my favorite thing about it is that Fraction and Zdarsky manage a humorous but at times sensitive and relatable story, or trying to describe to people why they should read it.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5 (Marvel) – Doreen is still stuck in the sixties, but this issue features an old lady Squirrel Girl to give her a hand. Surely, more hilarity and butt-kicking will ensue.

Snowfall brings deadly chill to dystopian genre

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Bestselling writer Joe Harris and artist Martín Morazzo, creators of Great Pacific, reunite for an all-new ongoing science-fiction series set in the year 2045—where it no longer snows.

In Snowfall #1, readers are introduced to a world where a catastrophic crash has left the climate ravaged, society splintered, and the newly-christened “Cooperative States of America” propped up and administered by the powerful Hazeltyne Corporation.

In the bleak world of Snowfall, only one man can wage an all-out weather war against the system, wielding the forces of nature themselves as weapons. He is the White Wizard. The ghost in the night. Genius. Terrorist. Outlaw. Hero?

Snowfall #1 (Diamond Code DEC150539) will hit comic book stores on Wednesday, February 17th. The final order cutoff deadline for comic book retailers is Monday, January 25th.

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