Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Image Comics (2007), Paperback, 128 pages
Description
Detective Richard Fell is transferred over the bridge from the big city to Snowtown, a feral district whose police investigations department numbers three and a half people (one detective has no legs). Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone, Richard Fell is starting all over again. In a place where nothing seems to make any sense, Fell clings to the one thing he knows to be true: Everybody's hiding something.
Media reviews
It’s concentrated Ellis, with everything he’s made his name on: the taciturn outsider who works to bring justice and only sometimes succeeds; the brilliant but broken woman who cares for him; the fascination with the extreme things humans do to themselves and others.
User reviews
LibraryThing member elvendido
The best innovation in comics in quite some time - cheaper than normal cover price, lots of extra back matter, and so much story squeezed into 3x3 grids that the book is bursting at the seams.
LibraryThing member rrreese
What can I say, this is really really good. The art is constrained to 3x3 panels, and is gorgeous. The story is dark and the art fits this mood very well.
LibraryThing member malundy
It is difficult to tell from the cover image but Fell vol. 1 Feral City is a graphic novel collecting the first eight issues of Fell. If you are a reader of graphic novels you certainly recognize the name, Warren; Ellis, a British author "well known for sociocultural commentary."
Fell: Feral City is
Snowtown is a feral city, blighted, decaying, randomly violent, inhabited by people with nowhere else to go or who don't care to go anywhere else. There is one police precinct with three and a half detectives to take care of all of Snowtown. One detective has no legs which accounts for the half.
Soon after arriving in Snowtown, Fell finds Idiot's Bar, run by a Vietnamese woman named Mayko. Mayko and Rich talk and she starts to fill him in on Snowtown. Like the meaning of the tag painted on buildings all over Snowtown, an S with X over it. Mayko tells Rich, "You put it up, you belong to Snowtown. If Snowtown knows who you are, it won't come and get you."
The chapters are short, perhaps 26 pages of mostly seven or nine panels. The eight chapters show Rich acclimating to Snowtown, working cases, and developing a relationship with Mayko. By the end of volume one we know the kind of detective Fell is. He cares. Snowtown is now where he lives and he intends to look after the other people who live there.
I would like to say a few words about graphic novels, particularly to those of you who haven't looked at one. I'm not a hardcore reader of graphic novels but I picked this one up because I read about it on Will Wheaton's blog, WWdN: In Exile - you might remember Will as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The New Generation - and he wrote good things about it. I really like the crime genre, particularly noir, and my local comic shop, Comic Cubicle, had it in stock. Graphic novels are interesting on several levels. There is the collaboration needed. You have the writer, the illustrator, and the letterer. All contribute significantly to the work. Obviously you need a good story to begin with and from what I see in Fell, Warren Ellis can write a cracking good one. The illustrations provide the descriptive elements that would otherwise have to be put down in words. A single page of nine panels would take several pages of text to describe. But it isn't just the pictures, the uses of different color washes can do an amazing job setting a mood. Take the panel where Rich first sees Idiot's Bar, the street is in shades of grey but Idiot's Bar is lit in warm sepia tones. There is a small box of text that looks a bit like a post-it note that reads "Oh thank God." There is a tremendous amount detail and feeling in that one panel. You get Rich's state of mind and the likelihood that Idiot's Bar is going to become a place of refuge for Rich. The letterer not only has to provide the text but let us know who is taking and the sequence in which each character speaks. Skillfully done, you get the impression of rapid back and forth dialog like you see often in cop shows such as Law and Order.
If you are a fan of gritty noir police stories and are curious about graphic novels, I recommend Fell. Actually, I would recommend Fell as a terrific graphic novel under any circumstances and would like to buy Will Wheaton a beer for bringing it to my attention.
Fell: Feral City is
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a hard-core noir graphic novel. Richard Fell (Rich) is a police detective recently transferred "across the bridge" to Snowtown from an unspecified city. We don't learn the reason for his transfer in this volume but apparently it was a matter of accept the transfer or be fired. From what we learn about Fell here it is easy to surmise that he did something out of a sense of justice rather than what was politically expedient.Snowtown is a feral city, blighted, decaying, randomly violent, inhabited by people with nowhere else to go or who don't care to go anywhere else. There is one police precinct with three and a half detectives to take care of all of Snowtown. One detective has no legs which accounts for the half.
Soon after arriving in Snowtown, Fell finds Idiot's Bar, run by a Vietnamese woman named Mayko. Mayko and Rich talk and she starts to fill him in on Snowtown. Like the meaning of the tag painted on buildings all over Snowtown, an S with X over it. Mayko tells Rich, "You put it up, you belong to Snowtown. If Snowtown knows who you are, it won't come and get you."
The chapters are short, perhaps 26 pages of mostly seven or nine panels. The eight chapters show Rich acclimating to Snowtown, working cases, and developing a relationship with Mayko. By the end of volume one we know the kind of detective Fell is. He cares. Snowtown is now where he lives and he intends to look after the other people who live there.
I would like to say a few words about graphic novels, particularly to those of you who haven't looked at one. I'm not a hardcore reader of graphic novels but I picked this one up because I read about it on Will Wheaton's blog, WWdN: In Exile - you might remember Will as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The New Generation - and he wrote good things about it. I really like the crime genre, particularly noir, and my local comic shop, Comic Cubicle, had it in stock. Graphic novels are interesting on several levels. There is the collaboration needed. You have the writer, the illustrator, and the letterer. All contribute significantly to the work. Obviously you need a good story to begin with and from what I see in Fell, Warren Ellis can write a cracking good one. The illustrations provide the descriptive elements that would otherwise have to be put down in words. A single page of nine panels would take several pages of text to describe. But it isn't just the pictures, the uses of different color washes can do an amazing job setting a mood. Take the panel where Rich first sees Idiot's Bar, the street is in shades of grey but Idiot's Bar is lit in warm sepia tones. There is a small box of text that looks a bit like a post-it note that reads "Oh thank God." There is a tremendous amount detail and feeling in that one panel. You get Rich's state of mind and the likelihood that Idiot's Bar is going to become a place of refuge for Rich. The letterer not only has to provide the text but let us know who is taking and the sequence in which each character speaks. Skillfully done, you get the impression of rapid back and forth dialog like you see often in cop shows such as Law and Order.
If you are a fan of gritty noir police stories and are curious about graphic novels, I recommend Fell. Actually, I would recommend Fell as a terrific graphic novel under any circumstances and would like to buy Will Wheaton a beer for bringing it to my attention.
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LibraryThing member zenobia158
The stunning artwork of Ben Templesmith and the short story genius of Warren Ellis. I hope there will be another volume.
LibraryThing member Cynara
Warren Ellis, surely working himself into the grave one nine-panelled page at a time, has done it a-goddamn-gain. I'm not sure that Ellis is ever better than when writing at street level; the grime, the bleeding, the routine, the situations you might find in the news. His superheroes are usually
In Fell you'll find humanity but not sweetness, empathy but not forgiveness. Rarely have I seen so much poverty in a graphic novel - and here it's not a "social issue", but the setting for every scene. There's also real horror here, and it left me unsettled.
Of course, this being Ellis, it's also hilariously funny. If that's not a combination you're comfortable with, you should probably steer clear.
At the heart of all this is the enigmatic protagonist, Detective Richard Fell. Disgraced, exiled to grotty Snowtown, Fell is a strangely mild hero: no cowboy, certainly no saint, but perhaps a good citizen. I was affected by his final assertion that, in the awful purgatory of Snowtown "none of you are nothing to me." He has secrets in his past that will no doubt be teased out in future instalments.
Ben Templesmith's brilliant art is perfectly suited to the story, by turns gritty, glowing, grotesque, painterly, and very atmospheric. I will have nightmares for years about the way he draws teeth.
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delightful (see Nextwave and Planetary), but his dirty cities are better.In Fell you'll find humanity but not sweetness, empathy but not forgiveness. Rarely have I seen so much poverty in a graphic novel - and here it's not a "social issue", but the setting for every scene. There's also real horror here, and it left me unsettled.
Of course, this being Ellis, it's also hilariously funny. If that's not a combination you're comfortable with, you should probably steer clear.
At the heart of all this is the enigmatic protagonist, Detective Richard Fell. Disgraced, exiled to grotty Snowtown, Fell is a strangely mild hero: no cowboy, certainly no saint, but perhaps a good citizen. I was affected by his final assertion that, in the awful purgatory of Snowtown "none of you are nothing to me." He has secrets in his past that will no doubt be teased out in future instalments.
Ben Templesmith's brilliant art is perfectly suited to the story, by turns gritty, glowing, grotesque, painterly, and very atmospheric. I will have nightmares for years about the way he draws teeth.
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LibraryThing member amobogio
Incredible, astounding, hilarious, Ben Templesmith, Warren Ellis and a nefarious character wearing a Richard Nixon mask and a nun`s habit...
LibraryThing member ragwaine
So this is interesting, because usually Ellis' characters are all bastards and the world sucks, but in this case the main character is practically a saint and the world REALLY sucks. So I'm glad he decided to switch things up a bit. I like the art, not typically my kind of thing but it really works
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for this story. I like the over-the- top absurdity of each little story. I was disappointed that we don't really get even a hint of what sent Fell over the bridge and the mystery of the Nixon Nun is not revealed at all. So now I just have to find myself a copy of Fell Vol 2. Show Less
LibraryThing member RalphLagana
This collection of comics (1-8) by Warren Ellis fit the bill with Halloween approaching. A good 4 stars for the reasons that follow: The muddled art is creepy, the stories are a mix of done in one's and done in a couple. This is missing from too many newly launched comic stories. Everyone wants to
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start a huge comic run, when sometimes the best course is to keep the stories less complex and short. I kinda like the protagonist, not that there's a lot to him ( a little mystery surrounds his arrival to the Feral City), but reader's sense he's a good guy despite the Se7en-like world he finds himself in. Show Less
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
A detective is transferred to serve a disintegrating neighborhood. The art plays into the creepy, off-balance vibe.
Surprisingly free of the usual Ellis rants and raves.
Surprisingly free of the usual Ellis rants and raves.
LibraryThing member SwitchKnitter
Really enjoyed this. Definitely one of Ellis' better works, and I wish there were more in the series.
LibraryThing member mmparker
Beach reading for people who have been completely desensitized to violence. The stories are an adequate vehicle for the unsettling, eye-popping art.
LibraryThing member TobinElliott
I'm not the biggest fan of Templesmith's art, but it actually suited this series quite well.
But, of course, the biggest star here is the now-tarnished one of Warren Ellis. I know I say this in damn near every review of his work, but man, this guy is a talented storytelling and wordsmith.
And this
The less said about this prior to reading it, the better. Just...read it.
But, of course, the biggest star here is the now-tarnished one of Warren Ellis. I know I say this in damn near every review of his work, but man, this guy is a talented storytelling and wordsmith.
And this
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short series does nothing to change my mind about that. There's very few characters populating this one, but it's essentially NYPD Blue, if that show was focused on a single cop and the city was FAR darker and more gritty.The less said about this prior to reading it, the better. Just...read it.
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Language
Physical description
128 p.; 10.16 inches
ISBN
9781582406930