From "The Winter Men Winter Special"

My monthly comics shipment hasn't arrived yet, so I haven't read The Winter Men Winter Special, the long-awaited conclusion to the sporadically released miniseries by Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon about the post-Cold War fallout from a Soviet superhuman program.

And that pains me, because although I've waited more than two years since the release of the previous issue, the idea that the finale is out there, taunting me, is frustrating.

However, my distress is eased somewhat by Jog's review of the Winter Special, and the series as a whole, in which he nails everything that made The Winter Men so ... fantastic, really: the denseness of the story, the intricacy of the plot, the cadence of the dialogue -- "What Deadwood is to American Western speech, Winter Men is to transliterated Russian conversation," Warren Ellis once wrote -- the beautiful art.

The review is a fine sendoff to a miniseries that I dearly wish had been able to run its full length (it initially was eight issues, before being reduced to six).

At Comics Should Be Good, Greg Burgas also focuses on the long, spaced-out history of The Winter Men, and provides issue-by-issues summaries for those who might've forgotten about the miniseries, or who are wondering what the fuss is about.

In a magical world populated by unicorns and wealthy, comic-reading benefactors, someone would throw tons of money at Lewis and Leon so they could produce more Winter Men.

But until I see a horned horse skipping across my lawn, I'll have to be satisfied with the Winter Special -- when it gets here -- and an eventual, and lovely, hardcover collection. (Hint-hint, DC/Wildstorm.)