Friday, August 18, 2006

Bride of Favorite Panel Friday


I love Fell. I love everything about it; it's consistently some of Warren Ellis' best writing, and Ben Templesmith has one of the most unique and distinctive illustrative styles in comics today. I like that every compact issue is a self-contained story, but is also another chapter in a vaguely creepy, overarching storyline.

Fell, will you marry me? You and Lopez! can work out the schedule.

OK, let's put this in perspective: Ellis has written some of my favorite books, like The Authority, Transmetropolitan and, most recently, Desolation Jones. He is, as the kids say, the shit (do the kids still say that?).

And Templesmith combines traditional drawing and painting styles with Adobe-fueled technology to create work that looks simplistic at first but drips depth and atmosphere. He practically reinvented vampires with 30 Days of Night, and his current Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse should already be on your pull list.

All this is a long-winded way of saying the panel from Fell #6 above is a nice example of snappy dialogue and moody scene-setting, a combination of casual patter and building tension in a book that manages to be crime-noir, horror and love-letter to the fictional Snowtown all at once. With this panel, you're rooting for Rich Fell, in every sense.

Special bonus! Hey, the first issue of Fell is available – for free, you deadbeats – online. Check it out, why don'cha?

And man, what's with that Nixon-nun?!?

Fell #6: Writer, Warren Ellis; Art, Ben Templesmith

2 comments:

Eric said...

The kids do NOT say that, but Fell IS the shit. Templesmith is my god and I worship at his altar (not really but I totally covet my Wormwood sketch from the con above every other posession I own). An excellent panel choice of course, as always.

Big T said...

Point in fact, kids these days say:

You're... the tits

You're... the balls

You're... pleasing to the palate

You're... so crotch!

You may use any of these variations with equal confidence. I tell you this because I care about you and because I don't want you to look foolish.

Stay crotch, my friends.