Snow Blind #1
Boom Studios
Written by: Ollie Masters
Art by: Tyler Jenkins
Lettering by: Colin Bell
This week features the start of a new four part mini series from Boom Studios, “Snow Blind,” that tells the story of a family that moved from Louisiana to Alaska. The son, Teddy, seems to find himself in trouble with the local cops and his family more often than not, and he feels like a stranger at home and in the community that surrounds him. However, an innocent prank goes on to publicize the family and bring more threating things to their doorstep.
Being a mini-series, “Snow Blind” moves quickly to get you into the action. In the opening issue, the mysteries behind Teddy’s family already begin to unravel. The audience begins to get answers to questions that will surly lead to conflict. We see why the family ended up in South Henley, Alaska but not necessarily what lead to this. We learn who it is that follows them there, but what this stranger has in store for the family is yet to be revealed.
The creative team has done a great job with this issue. Masters’ writing does well to encapsulate the tension within the family and the mysteries surrounding them. The writing conveys not only the feelings of the family but members within it: a son who feels betrayed by his parents and a father who works to conceal the family’s history. Perhaps it’s my bias towards the watercolor style, but I find the work of Jenkins to be awesome. The colors used in the issue are diverse and do well not only to capture everyday life but also the wilds of Alaska. Even solid colors are used to great effect to depict feelings of violence and isolation. Masters and Jenkins form a great duo that works well to illustrate that small town feeling many of us may be familiar with.
I feel that “Snow Blind” will offer its readers a story that we will wish wasn’t contained to only four issues. The narrative is fast paced and full of questions worth answering. Hopefully with the issues to come we will get more insight to the family’s violent past, but as the opening lines say, “You can’t know me, not really. I lived a whole life before you and half a life since.”