By: Chris Roberson (writer), Michael Allred (artist), Laura Allred (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)
The Story: Many plot points crash into one another as the zombie outbreak afflicting Eugene, Oregon comes to a climax.
What’s Good: Honestly, the best thing about this comic (and series) is the artwork. I’ve heard podcasters and bloggers toss rocks at Mike Allred because he always draws the same way, which is true, but if I drew this attractively I’m not sure I’d be in a huge hurry to change things up. His softer style is the perfect fit for this title where the lead character is a female zombie because he makes Gwyn look soft and feminine (as compared to the statuesque superheroines with the bulletproof bossoms and shiny butts we see in other comics). Even the guys in this comic are soft and kinda emo. I’m not sure if that’s just how they appear with Allred’s art or if Robertson tailored the characters to Allred’s strengths, but it gives this comic series a very unique feel compared to anything else on the shelf.
Kudos also to Laura Allred for her wonderful, mostly flat colors. She has many touches throughout this series, but one of my favorite is the way she colors Gwyn. Since she’s a zombie, you’d expect her to be kinda grey, right? Well Allred colors her lavender! Ordinarily, you’d think, “Why would a zombie be pinkish/lavender? That makes no sense because they shouldn’t have blood flowing around!” but it works well because it shows that Gwyn isn’t human without making a hideous monster. I guess Allred could have made her greenish too, but then she wouldn’t be attractive and Gwyn’s ability to be pretty is an important part of this series.
From a story standpoint, a lot of threads come crashing together in this issue. One of my complaints about the series is that way too many things are going on for a 20-page comic, but at least most of those stories are starting to interweave. In this issue, Gwyn, Horatio & Spot get out of the sewers and run into those freaky/cool Dead Presidents who we’ve seen in the back-up stories for the last few months. So, that is two stories pulled in. Then Diogenes (Horatio’s monster hunter boss) shows up to address a dangling plot point about how Horatio is dating Gwyn (who is a zombie). And Spot’s grandaddy (who is trapped in a chimpanzee body) shows up with Spot’s geeky friends. It is all coming together and next issue should be even better.
What’s Not So Good: It’s still too much stuff. Just reading that previous paragraph I typed, you can tell this is a busy story. And, that’s even before mentioning Amon and Ellie being up to something on the roof of some building and the ongoing Galatea subplot going on below the University of Oregon.
None of this is bad, but the problem is mostly that it is all going on at once. There are fast-paced writers that I really enjoy such as Jeff Parker, but this isn’t so much fast paced as it is jumbled. I can’t help but think that this story might have a better flow if one or two of these stories were saved for the next story cycle instead of having them all at once. There could be very plausible reasons for the story to be structured this way, but it does make the comic a little confounding in single-issue format. Again, it isn’t “bad” but I think it could have been better.
Conclusion: This series really tantalizes with its possibilities. I LOVE the art and enjoy many of the concepts, but too often it is like trying to drink from a fire-hose with the way the story is presented. It’s entirely possible this is a series that will read better in collected form.
Grade: B
– Dean Stell
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