Comic Review: Winterworld- Frozen Fleet #1- A Warm Book about the Cold

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Esteve Polls
Colours: Diego Rodriguez
Publisher: IDW
Released: 20th May 2015


I like Winterworld because it takes its time. It is confident, it has a story to tell, it doesn’t panic, there is no rush to impress here, the story is all, and it’s a good one.

Don’t worry if you haven’t read the book before, it’s not difficult to follow.

The story is about humanity, about living in a cold place where you struggle to keep your belly full, and to survive the biting cold not just of the weather, but of the human heart.

I’m not being clever here, that’s what the book is about. It’s about the coldness that infects the human heart, not about the weather.

Winterworld Frozen Fleet #1 has human disappointments, contradictions, and an encounter with a savage tribe. The savage tribe hunts in a pack, like wolves they have left their humanity behind, becoming Darwinian, like a pack of suit wearing executives at HSBC bank, morality no longer figures in what they do. They want something, and if they have to stamp on an anonymous human face to get it, well, that’s not going to be a problem for them.

Being cold is a test. Can you keep the warmth in your heart alive, or will the cold erase your humanity? How many of us compromise our moral values for a career, a relationship, a car, friends, some petty material warmth that puts the soul man in a freezer, and the animal man in a pack of wolves?

I contemplate these issues when reading this book, and then something lurks from beneath, a mystery, and the story that was taking it’s time becomes hugely exciting, ending on a cliff-hanger, with questions, with our heroes, our soul warriors in alarming peril.

That’s how you write a comic book. Emotional connectivity, an underlying questioning of what it is that makes us human, then danger, momentarily thwarted, ending with the protagonists looking down the barrel of a gun.

Winterworld is a far better comic book than I ever thought that it would be. There are no gimmicks here, this is a book reliant on superior story telling, not click bait gimmickry. Chuck Dixon poses questions about what it is that makes us human, he touches the heart, massages the brain, then puts his foot down on the accelerator and kicks his narrative into high octane action overdrive.

When the action kicks off you care because he’s taken his time, told a story, and made you emotionally connect with the people now fighting for their lives. That’s how you write a good comic book, and that’s how you make people care.

The world is cold, we all need a bit of warming up every now and then, and Winterworld: Frozen Fleet #1 is the perfect hand warmer for these austerity bitten times. It’s so easy to fall into apathy, to go into survival of the fittest mode. Why not just get a job at a bank and screw people over for a living? After all, that’s what all the successful people are doing, right?

I think I’ll turn down the chance to screw people over. I don’t want to join the pack of wolves. I’ll stay alone, reading comics, trying to stay warm, and trying not to let the cold of the world freeze up what remains, flickering, warmly, stupidly, optimistically, within.


Rating: 10/10 (A superior comic book about the human heart)