| North Wind #1 |
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| Posted by Mladen Luketin |
09:23 AM Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
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 "What a bleak dystopian future we live in." Writers love dystopian post-apocalyptic future scenarios. Pick whatever your society is currently afraid of, and capitalise on those fears by writing a book/comic/movie about it. Its actually a pretty lucrative business even if you're not the first one to come up with an idea. Climate change, the inspiration (but not the central subject) of North Wind is prime material. This is writer David DiGilio's first comic book project, having previous written the Disney film Eight Below as well as creating the ABC TV show Traveler. North Wind presents the after effects of a hypothetical scare-scenario: melting of the polar ice-caps results in the spread of a world-wide winter via the North winds. As the people of all nations migrate to the inhabitable equator, the fight for resources escalates and results in nuclear war, forcing the survivors out to the frozen cities to wait for the world to thaw again (so like "The Day After Tomorrow" but not nearly as stupid. The actual story of North-wind takes place after these events, in a frozen wasteland that is Santa Monica and Lost Angeles (their pun, not mine). As in Mad Max 2, fuel is a valuable commodity, but instead of its somewhat prosaic use in those films, the characters in North Wind need it for heat. As you'd expect, our heroes are a small community of outcasts who only venture to the larger Lost Angeles to sell their hunted furs and trade for food and equipment. Lost Angeles is of course governed by a small group of heavily armed criminals with bad attitudes. Tina Turner is nowhere in sight, but if I see a gladiator pit in the next couple of issues I'm totally dropping this title. In the first few pages we're introduced to Pak and his sister Schuyler as they go hunting for seal fur at the frozen carnival. The pair are attacked by a wild tiger, but are rescued by a lone skin runner (the Kevin Costner character). After this encounter, the hunter asks the children's mother (who is also leader of the outcasts... the future may be cold, but forget about sexual inequality) for an apprentice, but she turns him down. The group then embark for the city to trade for chain, but have attracted the suspicions of the governor. The first issue really sets the scene, and although the story is only just getting under way there's good promise of more to come. DiGilio has taken the time to fill in some of the day to day details of living (burning books, prostitutes for warmth) which really help build the world and make it seem much more plausible. Alex Cal's artwork (somehow reminiscent of Jose Ryp's at first glance) has a precise inked quality and is perfectly suited to depicting the frozen scenes and the characters. He takes as much time to properly and accurately draw the animals in the story as he does the human characters, which is a welcome change to most comic artists who can only draw people. Colourists Frank Gamboa and Rocio Canteros really work to give the icy setting and its inhabitants a dirty texture, flattening the colour and shading to suggest eternally overcast skies. Overall this could be a series to watch depending on how the next few issues pan out, and as long as DiGilio doesn't resort to tired post-apocalyptic clichés further down the track. The content is all clean and PG, which means this could be a strong all-ages adventure once the main plot kicks in. My one qualm with this book is how the scenario will be received by readers. Global warming is a good subject for these kind of post-apocalyptic stories since it has that important ingredient of plausibility. The idea that something could reasonably happen inspires people to ignore the facts about its causes and effects, and to just go and pick up a placard and shout some slogans without having the first idea of the actual facts behind it. In the case of climate change, scientists are still not even sure its going to warm or cool the planet (hence they dropped the name ‘global warming'). The whole idea puts us in awe of ourselves: We did this. We can change it if we want... Think long and hard about exactly what you know about global warming and its causes from your own reading and study, and compare it to how much you trust from inaccurate and misrepresented ‘studies' in movies or television (or worse, from the mouth of a charismatic POLITICIAN in an expensive suit). In reality we know very little about what effect human emissions and deforestation have on the mean global climate and atmosphere. Books like North Wind unintentionally promote a passionate gut-fear reaction rather than careful and conscientious analysis of the facts. Do your own research into the many papers on the topic, and start to take back some of the burden of knowledge onto yourself rather than falling in the trap of fear and blind trust. That's my rant for the day. Next week: Dennis the Menace and Ritalin. Comments (0) |
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