Fallen

Fell Volume 1: Feral City by Warren Ellis


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Why the hell did I put off buying this for so long? I've read about it for years, Ellis's experimental 9-panel 16 pg comic with art by Ben Templesmith.

Fans of Ellis's writing will find a lot to love, here: a flawed hero who wins some and loses some, odd and sometimes disturbing facts seamlessly woven into the story, and not too much of, as another reviewer said, the usual ranting.

Two nits: The style of Fell's dialogue sometimes blends into that of the minor characters, which is to say into Warren Ellis speak. Consider my favorite line, a bit from a narration box by Detective Richard Fell:

Grab a death coffee from Mr. Yang, the food pervert. He melts a Hershey bar into a pot of filter coffee, pours a 1602 and then drops a depth-charge of espersso on it. And maybe crystal meth. I don't know anymore what feels worse: Having one death coffee a day, or skipping it. I can already feel my internal organs going into crisis mode. At the end of my shift, the world's going to fall out of my butt.

As much as I'd love this coffee, the writing is the same stuff I read daily on Ellis's blog.

Second nit is that, like Desolation Jones, I'm left hanging, waiting for more adventures. The last issue published was #9, which I bought awhile ago. I didn't realize that I now have the entire series! :(

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