Broken Frontier

Kurt Belcher’s Winter War is an excellent example of an independent comic book that’s hard to get a handle on. On one hand, there is a lot of talent that’s gone into the book: the page layouts and caption boxes are handled well, the artwork is illustrated in wonderful shades of black and white, and the plot uses an unfamiliar piece of history as its backdrop. But on the other hand, I’m not really sure how I should feel once the book starts, and likewise, I don’t know how I should feel once the book is finished.

The first issue of Winter War depicts the battle of Tolvajärvi, a great military victory for Finland during the Winter War of 1939 against Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. And like most epic war stories, this is a tale of the boys in the trenches, exploring their thoughts and feelings as they’re influenced and affected by the death and violence that surrounds them.

Here lies the major failing of a book I want to like. Belcher drops us into the Winter War very much in medias res, which is usually a cunning technique of capturing and sustaining the audience’s attention. But Belcher doesn’t thoroughly flesh out the history of the Winter War, which left me shrugging my shoulders as he tried to empathize with the soldiers involved. Truthfully, I didn’t even know there was a Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union at the onset of World War II. I’m sure Belcher realized that many people are not aware of this historical fact, and seized it as a creative opportunity.

But it wasn’t until I paid a visit to the trustworthy online source of Wikipedia that I even figured out what Winter War was about, which surely should be made clear in the comic portraying it. Setting a story in the thick of things can be a crafty technique, but only if the events we’re thrown into are eventually explained.

Fortunately, my main trouble is more an editorial mistake and not a mark of ill creativity. Winter War looks fantastic: in addition to the writing, Belcher provides the pencils for this book, and he can certainly create a potent atmosphere. This comic successfully conjures up the black-and-white image of a bleak battlefield from a forgotten past. This is mixed with fine panel structure and page layouts. It should also be mentioned that while this is a black-and-white comic, the inker for the book, Henrik Horvath, also set the shaded tones for all of the scenes, which are outstanding at lending to the war-torn atmosphere.

Winter War is a book I admire for its style, but it has a ways to go in telling a story that’s truly compelling. I don’t know if this is Kurt Belcher’s first attempt at creating comics, but it does show promise. His style almost seems more suited for crime noir. But regardless, this imperfect book shows a lot of promise for a creator who’s on the right track.