By: Chris Roberson (writer), Michael Allred (art), Laura Allred (colors), Todd Klein (letters) & Shelly Bond (editor)
The Story: Gwyn has to talk to someone from her pre-zombie life in order to calm the voices in her head.
What’s Good: Many of the conceptual things in this issue are very strong and have been strong throughout this series. This remains a series with zombies, vampires, werewolves & monster hunters but without those characters playing to the stereotype. At its core, it’s really about a group of people who are outcasts from society, but without society even really noticing them. The creators have created a very rich world with a lot of possibilities.
The star of this issue/series is still Gwyn, the zombie. How you relate to her is going to be fundamental to whether you enjoy this series. If she kinda clicks in your brain, you can push past some of the issues I’ll talk about below. If you just don’t care for her character: early 20’s woman finding her way in the world and facing a HUGE identify crisis (because she’s a zombie), you should probably read something else.
I read a ton of comics every month and the best asset that a comic can have is an incredibly strong and consistent artist. Good artwork and graphical storytelling can smooth over a lot of problems. Michael Allred’s linework is just so smooth and efficient. I’m a huge fan of obsessively detailed art, but I can also really enjoy an artist who knows which lines are important and Allred definitely falls into that boat. He doesn’t noodle with his art and that’s great because sometimes those extra lines just screw up the power that a character can have.
What’s Not So Good: The story is just too crowded. You won’t find a bigger proponent of single issue comics than me, but this is one series that I’m starting to think might work better in trade. In this single issue we have 6 unique storylines. And it has been that way for a few months. The trouble is that the stories are evenly distributed throughout the issue, so each gets 3-5 pages and I’m not getting immersed in any of the stories so each month I have a little bit of a hard time remembering what is going on with any of the stories. And that’s why I almost recommend the trade for this series: I think it might function better in ~100 page chunks.
Conclusion: There are a lot of good things in this issue (and series in general), but it wouldn’t hurt if some of the less important storylines took a break. Great art from the Allreds!
Grade: B-
-Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion