Dave Bowling Comic Reviews

Issue 1 sets the premise up nicely. Ro Stein and Ted Brandt's artwork illustrates the sheer confused hell of someone that considered herself nothing but another brick in the wall being dropped into the spotlight in the worst way. Chris Sebela's script is sharp and the dialogue punchy enough to keep you interested and ready for the next issue. Which, in all honesty, is even better.

Welcome to Steve's life. Truth be told, he's had better days. However, that's no excuse for the rest of us to not enjoy the fun of the undead shuffling into British cities and taking on a gang of unprepared twentysomething drifters. And it is enjoyable. Buckenham's artwork is great and the dialogue rather quickly points out how the high street seems to be dying faster than the population of Raccoon City. The only criticism I have of this reissue of #1 is that it's primarily all scene-setting and rather light on the walking corpses. However, I'm already looking forward to getting my sticky mitts on the next issue and seeing where he takes it from here.

The debut issue is a little light on detail, but still has more than enough intrigue to draw the reader in and keep them interested. And of course Caspar Wijngaard's artwork is as spot-on as ever, capturing the mixture of Cajun and Latin America perfectly.

Greatly aided by its very limited colour palate (mainly monochrome with a small dash of green and red), Duguid's artwork is the real star here. Like films such as Schindler's List and A Matter of Life and Death, the black and white is used to illustrate a world devoid of colour and life. If there's a flaw here, it's that Trotter's script is a bit lacking in substance; although given that this is only number 1 of a series that's likely to be rectified as the world is further explored. It's a small niggle and the only thing that stops this getting the full five nerds.

This is a touching and extremely well-written graphic novel. There's not really much more that can be said about it. The storyline draws you in and makes you feel for these characters. This is only amplified by Joysuke Wong's fantastic artwork: the story truly comes to life. I honestly cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed this book " buy it, you won't regret it.

All in all, this is a pretty damn good ride. Recommended.

Issue 1 ends in a nice cliffhanger and I'm already looking forward to Issue 2. In your own time, Nev"

Still, so far so good, and I look forward to more fighting, explosions and swearing to appeal to my inner child and Firefly fan.

The artwork is easily as good as the storytelling, in fact it takes at least two read-throughs to pick up on all the little background Easter Eggs that D'Israeli has dropped in. If anything is wrong with issue 1, it's my usual gripe about the structuring of a lot of comics in the last few years: that the book is written not as a self-contained comic with a cliffhanger leading into issue 2 but as the first few pages of a graphic novel. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the story so far and I'm looking forward to issue 2.

Available via Great Beast Comics: http://www.greatbeastcomics.com/

Author Neil Gibson manages to build the suspense through all four issues while maintaining the comedy elements, leading to a suitably bloody climax and rather eerie conclusion. Certainly this series has been one of the better indie books I've come across in the last couple of years and I'm not ashamed to say I was hooked. Parts 1 and 2 are available online at Comixology.com, with the other two chapters due to go live at any time.

Overall, the series has been nothing short of a joy so far. The first trade paperback is fairly hefty at about 200 pages but is more than worth it. Bring on volumes 2 and 3.