When Snow Angels launches next week, two of the most acclaimed creators of our time — writer/artist Jeff Lemire and artist Jock — will team up for the first time, bringing a new, 10-issue limited series event together. The series, from the writer of Black Hammer and Gideon Falls and the artist of Wytches and Batman, will be an epic science fiction adventure story, set in a brutal near-future where the world is covered in ice. And to celebrate the release, Amazon Original Stories, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, will simultaneously release a short story that will help establish the world of the series.
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The short story is made in coordination with comiXology, who will be the digital publishers of Snow Angels. ComiXology is itself a division of Amazon. With cover art by Jock, the short story — also called Snow Angels — acts as a prologue to the comics, but can also be read as a standalone coming-of-age science fiction story that combines the world-building and characterization that Lemire is known for.
“Snow Angels has been gestating in my notebooks for over a decade and it’s really rewarding to see Milli and Mae finally come to vibrant life with Jock’s kinetic and emotive artwork,” Lemire said in a statement. “Jock and Will and I have been discussing this book for years and now The Trench finally lives! Really excited to share this story with readers and for them to fall into this world we are creating.”
“Jeff had me hooked from the minute he told me about Snow Angels and the story of Millie and Mae,” Jock added. “The mix of personal drama and the unique setting of The Trench and the world they live in make it a dream to draw. It’s been a long time gestating so I’m thrilled to see it find it’s home with comiXology and released into the world.”
In Snow Angels, Milliken and Mae have never left The Trench — it’s all they’ve ever known. They were born in The Trench, and they’ll die there, just like all their people do. The two girls, eight and eleven, are a part of The Trenchfolk, a sprawling settlement of people living inside the massive ice walls of a vast, seemingly endless frozen trench carved into the surface of an otherwise icy wasteland. The Trenchfolk survive in this hostile world by following The Three Testaments of The Trench—golden rules repeated like a mantra from birth to death:
- You must never leave The Trench
- The Trench provides
- The Trench is endless.
Milli and Mae don’t really know how their people came to live here. No one does, not even their wise and gentle father. On Milliken’s twelfth birthday, their father takes the two girls on an overnight skate down the trench — a coming-of-age ritual to teach them how to fish the frozen river, how to hunt the wild Trenchdogs that wander its frigid banks, and how to give proper thanks to their frozen Gods — The Colden Ones. It’s the trip of a lifetime until the girls push beyond the borders of their humble land and awaken the Trench’s deadly defender…The Snowman!
Snow Angels #1 will be released February 16, 2021.
Part of the comiXology Originals line of exclusive content, Snow Angels will be available upon release, at no additional cost, for members of Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, and for purchase on Kindle and comiXology.
Like all Amazon Original Stories, Lemire’s Snow Angels: A Short Story will be available free to Prime Members and Kindle Unlimited Members in ebook and digital audio formats, beginning February 16, 2021.
