Long Cold Winter

A former soldier and his robot companion struggle for survival in Perillo’s comic SF graphic novel, featuring art by Cardoselli.

Disruption is the essence of classic dystopian fiction. However, the problems that face a New Yorker called Peace Dog—a former soldier scarred by brutal events in his past—feel more extreme than most. One is unbreathable air, which only Air Co.’s oxygen generators can remedy, and few people can afford them. Like his fellow city dwellers, Peace Dog is preoccupied with the grueling business of survival, and he’s ducking a crew of unbalanced hunters who hope to collect a bounty on him (“My gun is pointed at a head worth $100,000,” says one early on). The Big Apple depicted here is a rotten one, with its fabled features—such as Central Park, now only a barren desert—rendered largely unrecognizable by recent calamities. Along comes the Kid, a robotic youth who wants Peace Dog to help him escape from the dangerous city to the Northern Mountains and finally find some measure of peace. Understandably, Peace Dog is skeptical (“I don’t help anybody”), but he eventually signs on, presumably emboldened by his superior combat skills and adeptness with a samurai sword. What the pair encounter, as the story progresses, will push them to their physical and mental limits. Perillo and Cardoselli’s tale traverses the type of terrain that will instantly feel familiar to any fan of Mad Max (1979) or Escape From New York (1981). Any new creator in the post-apocalyptic genre faces an uphill battle, because the groundwork was cast in cement long ago, but the creators prove up to the challenge in these pages. The brisk and bare-knuckled hardboiled storytelling unfolds at a rapid clip, and an unlikely blend of SF and Western elements in a detailed style works heavily in its favor. For teenage fans who can’t get enough of dystopias, this offbeat, action-oriented cocktail should prove to be irresistible.

A breathless and colorfully rendered saga of an ex-soldier’s flight from a cadre of bounty hunters—and from his own past.