Back in... White?

It's been so long since I've done a serious post, the hardest part was deciding what to write about.
Yeah, l'embarras du choix, go figure...
Thank Crom & Bel I only read good stuff, then, huh?

So I picked up the definitive edition of Whiteout by Rucka & the immensely under-valued Steve Lieber.


Crime never sleeps, and even on the furthest edge of what could be called civilisation, even only because there's some people there, even on Antarctica, people get killed.
Violently.
Carrie Stetko, the Marshall of those parts, may be as cold as the place she's guarding. She certainly puts the 'well-defined' into 'anti-hero' and makes this story really interesting, even if the actual plot had involved Polar bears knitting a sweater for 140 pages.
Of course, it's not, so that does help though.
However much one may setting the locale in such an unlikely place, it's more than a gimmick. The environment, the inhuman, unworkable & harsh conditions, the sheer white desolation of that cold place is as much a character as the bad guys, the victims & the protagonist.
The first volume is a true exercise in noir whodunnit and seems to have no more than a one shot potential. After all, there's not really any people living over there. So, for the next volume, the tone of the mystery heads more into spy territory, but the uniqueness of this series as opposed to say, Powers, Fell or any other similar noir/cop/crime genre series, is the location.
That couldn't have more perfectly chilled you to the very core of your being if you'd actually been there, developing frostbite in your fingers and losing feeling in your cheeks.
Steve Lieber, though by no means sporting any kind of remarkable, amazing art-style, is a cunning draughtsman. His linework, intense eye for details, shadows (and the lack thereof), shading, and obsessive patterning of his drawings complement the story so perfectly... Just click that link to see what I mean.
Good stuff.

More Rucka: I've not read everything he's done. I never much cared for Queen & Country (parhaps it was the art, I don't know) but I really enjoyed Gotham Central, so much so even, I wanted to follow up on Renée Montoya and gave 52 a second look. Those aren't all that bad, either. And the other characters featured, though not written by Rucka, are quite well-done as well.

Be seeing you
--nout