By: Chris Roberson (writer), Michael Allred (artist), Laura Allred (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Bond (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)
The Story: With the feds on site looking for leftover zombies from the big outbreak, how’s a girl supposed to get a brain to eat?
Five Things:
1. A new direction for the series. – The ending of this issue really causes one to wonder if the series is headed into a new chapter. The first story cycle really seemed to mostly be about establishing the characters. True, there was a story going on with Galetea’s plans and the big zombie outbreak, but most of it was about undersouls and oversouls that the differences between ghosts, zombies, mummies, revenenants, were-creatures, etc. Now Gwyn has gone running off with the Dead Presidents I guess to be part of their super-team? It should be very interesting to take Gwyn out of her hometown and see what happens, especially with the Dead Presidents who are such interesting and mysterious characters. And, we’ve also got the were-terrier and his new boyfriend, someone getting chloroformed behind a dumpster, Ellie’s new boyfriend, etc. Lots of good stuff…
2. Maybe getting a little busy again. – If I’ve had a long-standing bone to pick with this series, it’s that it has a little too much going on in each issue. It reminds me a little bit of when you’re trying to download 8 things onto your computer at one time. Sometimes it is more rewarding to let just one thing download first and be done with it while the other stuff happens in the background. To that point, there are 6 distinct plotlines rolling through this issue and that’s a lot to get into 20 pages. It’s Roberson and Allred’s book and they can pace it how they please and I really do enjoy it, but I might enjoy it even more if they’d prioritize one of the threads and move the others into the background. Or, kill some characters. That’s always good for sales.
3. …BUT, we do revisit some characters we’ve missed. – Just to show what a hypocrite I am, it was also fun to see a few characters that had disappeared for a few issues. I guess that’s the curse of the busy plotlines: Once you show the reader all these characters, we start to expect them to be around forever, unless they die. So, it was pretty neat to see Amon and the redhead vampire-chick who works for Galatea. I LOVE the character design on that vampire chick: messy RED hair, green Oregon sweatshirt…. great!
4. Wonderful art. – Michael Allred’s linework is a big part of what makes this series run so well and it helps me stick with it month-to-month. These pages just look so incredible. I love that he doesn’t noodle with his art: he just puts down the few lines that are needed to capture the image that he is going for. There’s a real skill in knowing how to draw this way and it makes for a very economical and beautiful book. It’s just clean looking. And then what really makes the art pop are the colors. Laura Allred works in this kinda two-tone style that is so visually powerful.
5. Great cover. – Man, look at the design elements on that cover! That is so cool to make it look like a gossip magazine. I’m sure someone has done that basic style before, but a comic like this really stands out on the shelf compared to a bunch of black and gray images of Batman standing purposefully in the rain and glaring down at Gotham for the millionth time.
Conclusion: A pretty good issue where a lot of new stuff gets started. It may be a tad busy for my taste (and really shows the difference between 22 and 20 pages), but even with that limitation, this is still one of the strongest non-superhero titles out there. And the art is just sickeningly good.
Jumping on point?: As with all Vertigo series, you’d be best served by starting at issue #1 or with the first trade. But, if you are too lazy to read a few trades to catch up, this is a pretty decent place to jump into the middle even if you’ll be a little confused.
Grade: B+
-Dean Stell
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