SNOWPIERCER
Drawn French
RELEASED OUT NOW!/ 30 June/21 July
Publisher Titan Comics
Writers Jacques Lob,
Benjamin Legrand, Olivier Bocquet Artist Jean-Marc Rochette
If watching the Netflix series prompts you to dive into these reissues of the French graphic novel trilogy about a luxury super-train circling a frozen future Earth, expect to be surprised. They present a markedly different world.
First published in 1982, volume one of Le Transperceneige, aka The Escape has a much more down-to-earth setting – its train even has old-fashioned compartments. It’s unrelentingly bleak, with notional hero Proloff’s progress through the carriages constantly threatened by violence and punctuated by obscenities (F-word count: 50). Grim and gritty, it also concludes with a downbeat fizzle-out ending. Artist Jean-Marc Rochette’s characterful faces, all sharply delineated, are the main draw.
Subsequent outings see Rochette turning to smudgy charcoals and eventually adding washes of colour. As new writers board (original scribe Jacques Lob died in 1990), the series explores more outlandishly SFnal territory. Second volume The Explorers
(1999/2000) ramps up the action and introduces a larger second train, fitted out with VR helmets and lasers, before putting it on tyre chains to head out across a frozen sea. Mad.
Volume three, 2016’s Terminus
turns the weirdness dial up yet again, with the passengers finding a secret underground city complete with amusement park, zoo and nuclear power station! It’s utterly bonkers, but thoroughly entertaining. All three, with their wild concepts and more explicit sexuality, at times make the TV show look pretty tame. Ian Berriman
Volume one of a new prequel story, Extinction, was released last year. Part two, Apocalypse, is due in September.
At times makes the TV show look tame