Poor Artwork & Often Confusing Storyline
Review of the Caliber Comics graphic novel paperback edition collecting the 4 floppy comic books of the Winter War series.

[2.5 bumped up to 3 due to my personal attachments]
The Winter War graphic novel tells the story of a 3-man sniper unit fighting in the defending Finnish army during the 105-day Winter War 1939-40 (from the Finnish Talvisota) when the Russian army invaded their neighbouring country in anticipation of a quick victory with their overwhelming amount of manpower and equipment. The attacking forces found themselves bogged down by the unfamiliar terrain and the unexpected resistance of a quickly mobilized citizen army supported by various international volunteers. Eventually the Russians settled for some territorial gains ("Just enough to bury our dead." according to a Russian source quoted here) instead of complete conquest. The parallels to the present-day Russian invasion of Ukraine (Feb. 24, 2022 to mid-May 2022 as I write this) are obvious and hopefully prescient.

Although writer/artist Belcher does follow specific historical events such as the Battle of Tolkajärvi and the Battle of Raate Road and includes cameo appearances by historical Finnish war heroes such as Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major General) Aaro Pajari and legendary sniper Simo Häyhä aka 'The White Death', I often found the plot line hard to follow. This was compounded by the fact that in the 3-man unit, 2 of the characters (Tero and Niklas) were drawn as if they were virtually identical with no separate distinguishing features. The 3rd man, Manu, at least had a fur-lined parka with which to identify him.

I would have found most of this to be completely confusing if I hadn't previously read something like Finnish Soldier vs Soviet Soldier: Winter War 1939–40 (Osprey Publishing, 2016). Probably most who read this would come to it with some similar background knowledge with which to help follow the story.

An interesting linguistic footnote was displayed in a scene where Hungarian volunteers arrived to aid the Finnish army, the Finns are surprised to not be able to understand what the Hungarians are saying. Finnish and Hungarian are considered part of (and indeed are the 2-named members) the Finno-Ugric language group of which Estonian, Saami, etc. are others. As someone of Estonian heritage I've found this to be the same in my experience, I can often understand Finnish but Hungarian looks and sounds completely foreign to me. ( )

In this historical fiction graphic novel, a Finnish sniper battles through a short little border war between Finland and Russia that really happened in the midst of World War II, but about which I was wholly ignorant. A little background is provided, but the larger picture is ignored for the most part to give us a soldier's view of the war, which basically boils down to the old "War is hell" conclusion. The writing and art fell a little short for me, especially coming so soon after my reading Garth Ennis' excellent Sara, another war graphic novel about Soviet snipers during World War II. ( )