Television adaptation: Snowpiercer by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette

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Snowpiercer the series premieres Sunday May 17 on TNT. Photo: google

Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette are French comic book creators who created the post-apocalyptic French graphic novel Le Transperceneige.  It was first published in 1982 under the title Le Transperceneige and later retitled The Escape. An English translation was released in 2014 by Titan Comics, consisting of two volumes: Snowpiercer: The Escape and Snowpiercer: The Explorers. A third volume, Terminus, was released in 2016, followed by a prequel series in 2019. In the graphic novel, an attempt to stop global warming via climate engineering catastrophically backfires and creates a new ice age, the remaining humans now ride the Snowpiercer, a circumnavigational train. It was adapted into the 2013 South Korean-Czech science fiction movie Snowpiercer starring Chris Evans and Octavia Spencer, John Hurt and Ed Harris.  Now it is an upcoming television drama series that will premiere on TNT on Sunday May 17 and stars Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connally.

In Snowpiercer, humanity rides in a 1,001 car train called Snowpiercer starting in 2014.  By 2031 they have become segregated by class with the elite in the extravagant front cars while the poor are forced into squalid tail compartments by armed guards. In the movie, Curtis Everett is a member of the lower class tail section who leads a revolution against the elite of the front of the train. The series is a reboot of the film’s continuity. It questions class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival and has already been renewed for a second season.