Why hello there, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to an increasingly-festive edition of Pulp – I hope you enjoy your stay, and don’t mind the fact that this won’t really be festive at all. I might have lied, sorry. After years of retail, I can assure you that the Christmas spirit does not, in fact, live in me, and burned up years ago. This time of year – aside from the wonders of double time and a half pay on public holidays – usually has me becoming increasingly grumpy and I think this week’s book reflects that. With that in mind, hold on to your pants guys.
This week, I’ve delved into my rather large “to-read” pile and pulled out a book that I thoroughly enjoyed, and despite its overarching darkness, I think quite a few of you will enjoy too. Fell, written by comic maestro Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Hellblazer) is a noir/horror/mystery hybrid that will aptly tickle the fancy of any enthusiast of the above genres, and if you’re a fan of all three of them you might just have some kind of seizure from delight.
Fell follows the life and times of Detective Richard Fell, a homicide detective who is forcefully and seemingly unceremoniously transferred to (read: dumped in) a sprawling urban disaster zone called Snowtown. Snowtown is the kind of place that your parents warn you about; everything is breaking or broken, the people are destitute and violent and really, overall, it’s just a shitty place to live. On top of a soaring crime rate, the area’s police force is dramatically undermanned – Fell’s lieutenant quips that he has “three and a half” detectives – and quite frankly, no one “over the bridge” seems to give a shit. Everyone is hiding something – from his pill-popping lieutenant, to the nice old lady down the street, and especially that creepy-ass nun wearing the Nixon mask.
Each chapter of the first volume of Fell – Feral City – is an independent, stand-alone story; one of the benefits of following a detective as he works his cases. One of the standout features of the book is its incredibly dark tone, set not only by Ellis’ typically excellent writing but by the fantastic artwork of Ben Templesmith, who you might remember from Ten Grand and Gotham By Midnight. Templesmith makes Snowtown what it is; even from the first panel of the first chapter, you’re overwhelmed by the darkness of the place.
One of the creepier aspects of Fell is the reoccurrence of the aforementioned nun; there’s absolutely no context given for the character’s appearance, or what on earth they’re up to – in one panel, she/he/it is buying ice cream, and apparently robbing a beggar a few chapters later. Fell himself comments that he needs to find a reason to arrest the nun, but beyond that, there’s no further details given, and the nun’s role in an overarching plot remains a mystery. Given the very sporadic releases of the individual chapters, and the fact that the book has been on hiatus since about 2008, don’t expect any answers to the questions any time soon.
Regardless of unresolved mysteries, Fell’s insular, contained stories make for a great read; each one is interesting and twisted in the typical Ellis manner, and serves to drag you even further into the disturbing streets of Snowtown. Fell serves up a cracker of a story, and if you like your stories to be dark’n’spooky, this comic will excite you.
Written by Alastair McGibbon
