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)

Comic review: Winterworld #0- Wynn’s Tale- Beautiful Christian folk

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Tommy Lee Edwards
Publisher: IDW
Released: 4th March 2015

Winterworld ‘Wynn’s Tale’ is a book where Christians want to help, educate and protect the young. There are no twists, no nastiness, no hypocrisy, and no perversions. The Christian adults quote from scripture, give the children everything they need, including an appreciation for fairness and hard work, and when the children grow up they have the free-will to leave, and to spread the good word, to help others, or not, it’s their choice, nothing is forced.

The artwork is beautiful, laden with a sense of roughness, but the colouring resonates with the narrative themes. There is beauty in the roughness, a beauty to be appreciated, it’s up to the individual to see it, it’s exists, just as long as you look and want to see. Again, like the core moral message of the book, it’s there, nothing is forced, you are free to choose, free to appreciate it, or free to ignore it and instead focus on the harshness, the unreality within the reality itself.

I enjoyed the subtlety of this book, the sense of beauty, the lack of cynicism, the lack of nastiness, of spite, of hatred for humanity and distrust of the religious. It is a beautiful book, and I recommend that you get yourself a copy, sit in a warm, comfortable place, read, relax and enjoy.

Rating: 10/10 (Subtle, warm, poetic and kind)

Comic book reviews: Justice Inc #6 & Winterworld #7- ‘Policedar’ special

The following two reviews are ‘Policedar’ reviews. That is a term invented by myself, and invented just one minute ago. A ‘Policedar’ review is a review that will expose any subtle Police state message that is hiding within an entertainment (music/television/movie/comic book) text. I don’t hate the Police, but you have to understand the reality that the Police are always the actual, physical, flesh and blood people who enact new world order/globalist policies that enslave us all. The order following boys and girls in uniform create the global Police state, not the be-suited politicians and the shadowy cabals that operate behind the scenes to manipulate society. It’s the Police who actually build the prison, so ‘Policedar’ is the word that I will be using, and yes, it’s a take on the word ‘Gaydar,’ a word very much in the popular vernacular right now. These reviews will briefly discuss the artwork, narrative and other aspects of the text, but their main concerns will be any Police state issues within that text.



Policedar review no 1- Justice Inc #6 (Dynamite Comics)

This book concludes the end of a very confusing run where month by month it was almost impossible to understand what was going on. The script was incredibly convoluted with far too many characters and organisational names and time travel shenanigans going on, and if you read it on a monthly basis without reference to the previous books then you would be hopelessly lost and confused with what was happening. This is annoying, very annoying, and so I’m not going to miss the book. The art was a bit static, and the characters (apart from The Shadow) blended into each other far too much, making it even more confusing.

The villains were the Nazi’s, and the heroes were independent, wealthy men. This ties into the myth that the rich are there to help the poor innocent, helpless civilian-suspects, and that capitalism is your friend, not your enemy, so in that sense it’s an old fashioned, right-leaning book, not one for the Collectivist, Socialist, Marxists who tend to write most of the mainstream comic books these days. One thing to note is that despite it being a time travel book the latest event that it dealt with was one small panel of the exploding towers on 9/11. Nothing post that event in 2001 (that is over thirteen years ago now) was discussed. In that sense it was another book playing it very, very safe and making sure that it didn’t do anything to upset the current corporate/banking/permanent war status quo of the elite’s that control the political system and mainstream media in 2015. I enjoyed the cover-art, and I appreciated that the Shadow was singled out as the most interesting character in the book, but the plot as a whole was far too intricate, it didn’t deal with contemporary concerns, and it left very little impact on me as a whole. Rating: 3/10


Policed review no 2- WinterWorld #7 (IDW Comics)

This book comes from the ‘right-wing’ point of view, as far as socio-political commentary goes, but it focuses on independent ‘normal’ people rather than rich industrialists like Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark or all of the heroes in Justice Inc. The main protagonists don’t rely on the state, and they are not a part of the corporate status quo/control system because in this post-apocalyptic freezing cold world there is no state, and no corporate elite’s to belong to. I classify them as ‘right-wing’ because they are independent people who do not belong, and do not want to join a collectivist/leftist commune of deluded Animal farm hippie types. They are tough, self-sufficient, independent and free, and that is why I like them.

This issue is the end of a run, and the last time we’ll see the amazing artwork of artist Tomas Giorello on the title. The title returns in February and March 2015 with two prequel books that feature the main two protagonist’s early days, before they met, and before Winterworld became what it is today. Hopefully they won’t be as bad as those never to be mentioned Star Wars prequels, because this has been a good book, with strong male and female characters, and no Police state nonsense to spoil it all. This issue featured a fight, a team-up, and the action will continue. It was good, the message of independence and self-sufficiency was just what we need to see more of in comics, and the art, by the wonderfully talented Mr Giorello was fantastic. If I see the name ‘Chuck Dixon’ on a title I’ll buy the book, not because I know that he’ll write fascinating characters and a well crafted, exciting story, but because he doesn’t do the feminist liberal nonsense that has contaminated most of the other comic book writers working in the industry today. Rating: 8/10

Blitz Review: Winter World #1- Snow flakes and drama

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Butch Guice
Publisher: IDW
Released: 18th June 2014


There’s an interesting addendum to this first issue of Winter World where writer Chuck Dixon explains that he’s going to try to stay clear of the climate change/global-warming debate when writing this book. Personally speaking I’d like to see somebody take a stand and go up against the crooks who want to use natural weather fluctuations to tax and control us, but even though that’s not going to happen here, I still enjoyed reading the book.

Winter World is going to be about the inherent drama that comes from following two people in a dystopic frozen wasteland as they struggle for survival and explore themselves in ways that can only come to light when individuals are faced with the most dire of circumstances. I’m okay with that, as the two protagonists (a loner protective male type and an ebullient young girl) are instantly likeable and I want to see how they get on in this horrible frozen wasteland that they’ve found themselves in.

I didn’t find the front cover very appealing, but the interior art looks very good, with the backgrounds of a snowy wasteland and perpetual blizzard being perfect atmosphere setting fodder.

I like the fact that the story is easy to follow, it has moments of playfulness and fun (they have a pet badger), and things happen almost immediately. They find an old aircraft carrier stuck in the snow, steal a cool jeep thing and get attacked by a Mad Max type group with wolves. That’s a lot for issue #1. But it never seems crowded, and it never confuses either.

I like the book. I like the people in the book, I like the art, and I’m adding this one to my pull list.

The book isn’t going to be taking on Al Gore and his bankster friends, but as long as you don’t expect it to, I think you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of the story. The writer appears to know what he’s doing, and there should be some good emotional drama coming from the book in the next few months. It’s a promising, highly competent start, check it out. Rating: 8/10