Nardwuarama talks to John Paul Leon:
NRAMA: Catching up on your other current projects, Wintermen has been well-received but has also had scheduling problems going into the second half. For fans interested in catching up, what is that series about? What bits of intrigue have transpired thus far?
JPL: Brett Lewis, the writer of the series, and myself have been developing and executing this story for a number of years now. I'm currently working on the art for issue five, and I have to say, I think it's going to easily be the best issue of the series so far. I just love what Brett has written here and I want to give it the weight, density and complexity it deserves.
It's a difficult story to condense. It's really our way of trying to bring some of the texture and flavor of the great 1970s character driven movies into the comic book form. Movies like Chinatown, The Last Detail and Raging Bull, which was really a ‘70s movie even though it came out in the ‘80s, as well as any number of Woody Allen movies. You pick, they're all great...
It's set in contemporary Russia. On the surface, it's a crime drama/ political thriller, but it's really a character driven story that takes you into the present day world of ex-special ops and organized crime in Moscow. We follow the main character, Kris Kalenov, an ex-Soviet rocket soldier trying to solve the past with the future as he investigates the kidnapping of a young girl, the recent recipient of a liver off the black market organ trade that potentially comes from a former Soviet super-soldier. We meet the members of his old unit, the RED 11-----Nikki, the gangster. Drost, the soldier. Nina, the bodyguard. And the Siberian. Eventually, the trail leads Kris and the others into the center of a complex power structure behind an ongoing gang war and other conspiracies in post-Soviet Russia.
I think it's the best story I've ever worked on.
Doesn't really say anything, but maybe hints that it's JPL's fault this thing is not coming out regularly.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 15 June 2006 14:27 (nineteen years ago)
And frankly, it's at least a sign that they're going to see it through, which has sort of been shaky since, what?, last October when they took a five month break.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 15 June 2006 14:57 (nineteen years ago)
This is all very weird. I saw that there were 50 pages or so of art done a couple years back at a show in LA. I'm thinking, more and more, that extensive revisions in the art/story are at work here (particularly in the drop from 12 to 6/8 issues). Anyways, WINTER MEN is still one of the best comics being put out today. Can't wait to get all in trade form someday.
― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Thursday, 15 June 2006 17:16 (nineteen years ago)
two years pass...
FUCK YOUR WET SPOT
I've been (finally!) reorganizing my books -- have about 15 longboxes (shocker, I know) and about a year+ of unorganized books -- and found Winter Men huddled sadly between copies of Wetworks and Deathblow. Read the first 2 issues yesterday -- so dense and savory! Cannot wait for the final issue!
― David R., Friday, 26 September 2008 14:25 (seventeen years ago)
two years pass...
fucking hell.
finally read the last two issues, what a let down after the first three totally awesome, pitch-perfect writ-and-drawn to to the TEES issues. (Fourth one was pretty good I think).
That slow, deliberate pacing of the first two especially was so good, but the end was just, oh yeah, I guess we'll finish this. I woulda rather they'd just fucking abandoned it, but I guess they wanted to make a trade.
I mean, the last half of Winter Men was a lot better than pretty much every other superheroic comic I've read in the last long time, but the concessions to whatever the fuck happened that screwed up its production schedule really sapped the greatness out of the last act.
Anyone have any idea what the hell happened? I can't find any juicy gossip about Winter Men, and even less info on writer Brett Lewis.
― make the Pagan Dad a Pagan Father. (Dr. Superman), Sunday, 19 December 2010 03:09 (fifteen years ago)
The project was snakebit from the word go. It was originally supposed to be a Vertigo series, but got shunted over to Wildstorm. At the time I think #2 or #3 was out, back in 2004/05, I remember running into Brett Lewis at a show in LA and asking about the series. He said "It's done, you wanna read the scripts?" and indeed he had the whole thing done at the time. I recall that it was supposed to be a 12 issue series, then an 8, then went on hiatus after 6 with the "annual" left to wrap up all the story threads. Attempting to wrap it up in that time is a thankless task. I can't agree that I'd rather have seen it fall off the edge of the world instead of an expedited finish, but all the same, I'd like to read all 12 issues of WINTER MEN that got published in an alternate universe somewhere.
― Matt M., Wednesday, 22 December 2010 00:28 (fifteen years ago)
Of course you're right in your level-headed assessment that the ending we got was better than nothing at all. I was just wounded by the fact that the stuff I loved the best about the early issues--namely, the deliberate pacing--was what necessarily had to go to get any ending at all. Has Brett Lewis written anything else? What's he doing now?
― make the Pagan Dad a Pagan Father. (Dr. Superman), Saturday, 1 January 2011 17:57 (fifteen years ago)