Customer Reviews

The Winter Men

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Buy this book now! Seriously. This is one of the greatest stories that I have ever read. In any genre. In any medium. And I have read thousands. This is simply amazing. Seriously I don't even know where to begin. I guess to oversimplify it I would call it a Russian version of Watchmen. Every line drips with poetry. Every page has striking imagery. Every character is a real person, complex and layered just like the story. These are master storytellers going at full throttle and without compromise. Be warned, this is not for little kids. It is dark, complex, filled with social commentary, black humor, lots of sex and violence, and not for one instant does any of it feel forced or done for shock value.These creators are trying to give you a glimpse of a modern Russia where gangsters, politicians, cops, intelligence officers, soldiers, mercenaries, and businessmen are all but indistinguishable from each other in there never ending cutthroat battles and manipulations for power. Strategies. Alliances. Betrayals. Conspiracies within conspiracies are the norm here. And caught in the middle is Kris. A former soldier who starts off trying to solve a kidnapping case and quickly gets sucked into much larger schemes that include everything from new Russian Mafya to secret government super soldier programs. The paranoia never stops and the killing never slows. This is a dark and dangerous world they have created and the truly disturbing part is how much like our own it resembles. It is a masterpiece.

I have never had any particular interest in the comic book as an art form, but this completely changed my perspective. On a recommendation I acquired the soft bound compilation of the whole series. Read as a whole it is an absorbing story. I was astounded by Lewis's ability to convey a rich and nuanced narrative in so few words. You owe it to yourself to experience this gritty post-Soviet haiku.

As someone without a lot of experience with graphic novels I have to say The Winter Men is proof that I've been missing out. The writing is action packed, funny and above all else smart. The art really brings the reader to a whole new level of interaction with the plot. I was blown away and will be looking for more from this genre. Keep em coming.

Words cannot describe. Go out and buy this, put a bottle of Russian Standard on ice, and begin a journey into this incredible world created by Lewis and beautifully illustrated by Leon. You will not be disappointed.

Written by Brett Lewis and illustrated by John Paul Leon, this wildstorm release is one of the best pieces of sequential art that I've read in the last year.

The writing style is sweet and strange. The art matches it perfectly.

I don't have time to go into great detail here, but since this book is lesser known, I wanted to give it my support on amazon in the hopes of encouraging others to try it out.

As a stand-alone book, it's more immersive than many longer running epics, and will only take a night of your time, but stay with you much longer.

If you want a longer review with a bunch of images, check out Simon's run down on this book at the Trade Reading Order website.

In the last 20 years it seems as if all the historians and writers of the political persuasion have dug deep into the relatively virgin area of Russian culture. As well they should, since for a little over 70 years the real study of Russian culture was for all intents and purposes off limits during the Communist reign. This culture is still dark and mysterious, which in America has in fact created the Russian Mafia. This culture is depicted as raw with the full effects of how these people dealt with living under an oppressive government.
This is all dealt with in Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon's depiction of the Russian culture in The Wintermen. Could The Wintermen be the Russian version of the American dominated "Watchmen". The similarities are remarkable. Both scenarios contain swift moving action which includes super heroes along with excursions into former enemy territories. In the case of the Wintermen it was the Russians going to Brooklyn in America. In the "Watchmen" it was an unlikely victory in Vietnam.
The story at times moves swiftly with confusing details but rather great looking artwork. The art creates the feeling and depicts the culture of Russia in fantastic detail. The main hero of the story is a battered and worn veteran named Kris Kalenov who moves as a true veteran of covert hostilities and is quite aware of all the traps lurking about the underground Russian Mafia.
What the Author Brett Lewis shows to the reader is an underground culture which was very prevalent in the days of the Soviet Union during the "Cold War". The Russian underground is known to make the Italian Mafia seem like boy scouts in comparison. This culture that is imbedded in sections of Brooklyn once the domicile of the old time Mafia is fully described by both Lewis and Leon. In fact the Wintermen is a true follow up of the graphic novel "Luna Park". This work is at time confusing but is well drawn and gives a picture of Russian culture which does exist. This graphic depiction is well worth the read. Although not as good as "Luna Park", it does deserve a 5 star rating.

I always have been a huge fan of graphic novels and it was time for me to grow out of super heros... WINTER MEN was my perfect!!! Kris Kalenov is my new hero!

Messrs. Lewis and Leon have conceived a riveting piece of art which takes you on a gripping journey. The superlative illustrations are ably matched by the multi-faceted and complex storyline, one which will keep you yearning for more. An absolute delight. Kudos to the masterful raconteurs!

I suppose I felt somewhat consoled (and a bit more sympathetic to writer Brett Lewis) to learn, after I'd finished reading _Winter Men_, that the series this TPB collects was originally supposed to have a run of eight issues, but only ended up with five...ish. Sympathy aside, though, this book should have, and probably could have, been soooooooo much better.

The story starts off really compellingly, having so much fantastic potential. (The ending recovers some of this promise, but not nearly enough.) As I made my way through the book, however, I couldn't help but feel that I was encountering some of the sloppiest, most disjointed and poorly paced comics writing I'd ever encountered in my 20+ years of being a comics reader. Frustration mounted from page to page, and I ended up finishing the book out of spite as much as anything else.

In some ways, and at a number of points throughout the narrative, John Paul Leon's truly extraordinary art is the only thing that made the book worth reading for me. I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a better, more apt choice of art/artist for this story (or, rather, for what this story wanted to be). In other ways, and at other points, it only heightened the frustration and disappointment I felt. There are moments and sequences in _The Winter Men_ when Lewis' and Leon's formidable strengths combine for some really spectacular comics storytelling. Those times are far too rare, though, in my opinion, to say that this TPB is worth investing in.

Maybe I totally missed the point of the book, though. Maybe the tragically disappointing form was meant to match the content, grappling as it does with the terrible, extraordinary failures of gleaming Soviet dreams. Probably not.