Even the most die-hard zombie fans won't be appeased by this.
George Romero’s cult classic is reimagined with a modern-day spin.
As Lizbeth prepares to leave her husband and two small children for her yearly pilgrimage to her parents' grave, the world—almost instantly—is besieged by legions of bloodthirsty zombies. In the short time it seems to take her and her brother, Leland, to drive to the cemetery, the world is seemingly overrun, and her family is desperately and ill-advisedly trying to find their way to her. Lizbeth and Leland team up with some other human survivors and find themselves at a creepy hotel owned by a homicidal (although uninfected) man and his family. Zombie fans should relish the grotesquely bloody scenes of violence between the undead and humans, ranging from decapitated bodies to a knife through the eye. However, the gore alone must carry the weight, because the plot has more holes than a shotgun-blasted member of the walking dead. The zombie deluge is barely explained, and the nearly instantaneous inundation leaves many questions about the timeline. For a first volume, there is nearly no exposition, creating a huge disconnect, especially when set against other well-known and -developed series such as Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead. The slickly drawn and colored panels are populated by a largely white living cast and a pallid undead one.
Even the most die-hard zombie fans won't be appeased by this. (Graphic horror. 15 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77085-799-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
The author of Why I Hate Saturn, best known for his long-running strip “Bad Publicity” in New York magazine, attempts an “urban romantic comedy——but his disparate influences and preposterous plot suggest something altogether different. Visually, Baker brings together a noirish, hard-boiled look for his foregrounds (one bad guy looks just like Robert Mitchum in “Cape Fear—), with backgrounds that would make the animators at Disney proud—full of cute animals, pretty trees, and stunning sunsets. The two “looks” reflect the convergence of narrative lines: Noel, a former Manhattan jewel thief, has spent the past year living upstate in bliss with his trippy, sensual girl friend, an “aura cleanser” by trade, who knows nothing of his checkered past and who loves to commune with nature. When she follows Noel back to the city, she finds herself in the middle of a nasty revenge tale, resulting in the death of Noel’s buddy Oscar, who bears a striking resemblance to the father in “Bad Publicity.” Baker, no gritty realist himself, mocks the street cred of a nameless movie director (read: Tarrantino), but would better attend to his own implausibilities, though a clever epilogue almost redeems the sillier aspects of the narrative. Baker’s computer-generated backgrounds—while cinematic in style—also result in much visual murkiness: his heroine has a mush of red hair and a smudge of lips. Warts and all, though, this full-color production deserves attention for DC’s effort to entertain adults for a change.
Pub Date: Jan. 19, 1999
ISBN: 1-56389-442-4
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
French comics artist Juillard, best known for his graphic novel, The Blue Notebook, here picks up a few characters from that work, and spins off a full-color narrative that’s best when he relies strictly on wordless frames. Juillard’s cinematic simplicity and his amazingly detailed backgrounds overwhelm the intrigue in the foreground—a commonplace thriller with few surprises. Abel Mias, a chubby Parisian schoolteacher, spots in a local gallery a photographic portrait of his old friend Tristan, a sculptor who disappeared a year earlier. The recent photo confirms that Tristan has indeed run off with the stunning Clara, an enchanting—and married—beauty whose desperate husband enlists her sleazy brother in an ill-fated plot to find her. Abel spends his vacation near Florence, tracking down the slim leads, and proves more efficient than the police. The final violent sequences, with murders and an attempted rape, display Juillard’s stunning visual skill. Elsewhere, he enhances his story with thugs straight from the film Diva and a splendid sequence worthy of Hitchcock—Abel witnesses a crime through binoculars. Only the final, wordy denouement detracts from this otherwise taut and sophisticated tale.
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56163-223-6
Page Count: 56
Publisher: NBM
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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