Written by Brian Wood
Illustrated by Becky CloonanSet during a period of civil war, an Icelandic fisherman finds the body of a young girl embedded in the thick ice ringing his lake. Unable to leave her, he goes to great lengths to excavate the corpse and vows to solve the mystery of her death. But when warriors associated with the local clan come around, he’s driven to conceal the body, and events quickly spiral out of his control. “The Girl in the Ice” is part 1 of a 2-part story featuring art by fan-favorite Becky Cloonan (DEMO)!
Northlanders is one of my favorite Vertigo titles at the moment, with every arc bringing in a new story and artist. Given that I’m already a fan of Wood and Cloonan’s previous collaborative efforts, what are my thoughts on the latest one – in color, no less! Find out after the cut.
There are things in life that ultimately go together well – peanut butter and jelly is a popular one, ice cream and fudge another, and Brian Wood’s writing and Becky Cloonan’s art is the most relevant. Northlanders #35 proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is a duo that needs to work more often.
Wood is an incredibly versatile storyteller, and Northlanders has certainly proven this time and time again via stories steeped in overt metaphors. The latest issue is certainly no different, featuring an old man alone in the mountains caught between the care of a corpse he shouldn’t have and a civil war that he wants no part of. We find ourselves attempting to understand the mystery of the girl in the ice through the little clues given by Wood, which at times simply feel like misdirection to a bigger story at hand. While the girl is on, the world continues to turn despite the man’s reluctance to be involved, and it’s interesting that the issue of a dead girl could be seen as more important or even treasonous when placed against the backdrop of feuding colonies. Wood makes a good point of pointing out the oddity in the soldier’s habit of bothering the old man who has nothing to do with anything as they attempt to spread their influence farther through the land. For a story that spends zero time showing any battles, the reader is really brought into the spirit of the situation, and the reflection manages to capture true to life situations. Even when one wants no part in the world around him, is it really possible to fully remove yourself from the situation if the government, whatever it may currently be, doesn’t want you to? While the story is of “the girl in the ice,” her role in the larger picture is rather small, all things considered.
But the real focus of the book I’d like to talk about is Cloonan and her art. Cloonan has an art style that can often be chameleonic at times, and she is an artist that can consistently reinvent herself visually. Northlanders is no different. With Demo, she was drawing young adults in somewhat fantastical situations, but with this issue she illustrates the pains of isolation for an old man in the mountains. This is the sort of situation you’d imagine many artists glossing over, but Cloonan never shies away from bringing a visual tour de force of scenery to the book. Wood has often done well at creating scripts that allow Cloonan to attack the page in silent sequences which say usually are able to say more than most artists. The opening scene of our main character traveling across the icy tundra is of particular note, as it is overlaid with the credits and is literally a page you can stare at for hours. The whole book is like this – while there are certainly a fair amount of scenes without dialogue, one might find themselves inclined to glaze through them in any other book in order to maintain a pace. Such is not the case for Northlanders and Cloonan – the pages without dialogue are the ones I find myself pausing to read the longest.
Northlanders has always been an easy book to jump into due to it’s disconnected stories, but there is not any reason not to get this comic. The writing is superb, and the art fully outdoes itself. The book should be bought for Cloonan’s visuals alone, and I can’t stress that enough. For fans of the comic medium as a whole, Northlanders is a comic you need to be buying. It really doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy
