Snowday Slushback?
by BK Munn
For a blizzardy day in February, links to a short series of posts on snow-themed comics from a few years back.
Snow in the Comics, Part 1: Sim and Snow.
“At some point in the early 1980s, Dave Sim seemed to decide to make snow a major character in his High Society graphic novel. I’m sure there was snow in earlier issues since much of the series was a parody of the Barry Windsor-Smith Conan comics and I’m pretty sure there was at least one issue of Conan that featured barbarians fighting frost giants in the wilds of Hyperboria, or wherever it was that Conan was from, but Sim’s use of snow in these later Cerebus issues really struck a chord with my 13-year-old self.”
Snow in the Comics, Part 2: Genevieve Castree revisits Herge.
“Perhaps the most famous of all snow-themed comics is Herge’s Tintin in Tibet, the classic, austere graphic novel that Herge identified as his favourite. Who could forget, after reading this story as a child, the epic journey of the indomitable boy reporter to find his long-lost friend Chang? During a troubled period of his life, Herge poured all his artistry into this simple tale of Tintin’s adventure in the Himalayas, his encounter with the lonely Yeti, and the struggles of his companions to survive and reunite Tintin with Chang, his friend from an adventure drawn decades earlier.”
Snow in the Comics, Part 3: Charles “Snowman” Schulz .
“Peanuts seems to contain the most extensive treatment of snow and winter of any comic, with the possible exception of some theoretical Scandinavian or Inuit strip I have yet to encounter. Of course, you could pick almost any subject and Peanuts will have treated it exhaustively, from football to philosophy, from World War I to worms –it was a smart strip that ran for 50 years. (And with the handy index in Fantagraphics’ new Complete Peanuts, you can actually look these things up.) Winter holds a central place in the iconography of the strip, not just as a marker for the passage of time and the basis for seasonal gags, but as a metaphor for psychological states and the various major themes of the strip.”