Dynamite Entertainment 2017
Written by Craig Engler & Fred Van Lente
Illustrated by Edu Menna
Coloured by Sal Aiala
Lettered by Simon Bowland
It’s a year into the zombie apocalypse, a worldwide tipping point when most of the surviving population dies and turns zombie. All remaining forms of government collapse. The last vestiges of civilization are abandoned. Everyone is starving and nobody is safe. Amidst the chaos, a small team of National Guard set out on a Hail Mary mission to find a cache of the food substitute Soylent Z, which may be the only hope to save the few people left.
I like this series so far for a number of reasons among them is that we’re seeing a different point in time from the television show and of course that the cast of characters we’re seeing is also different. Although Garnett wouldn’t be a bad character to flesh out as he was important to the series opener and then proved no one on the cast was safe. Plus that the world doesn’t really know about Soylent Z or it’s effects is great as well. I do hope that we’ll see more about the little pockets of civilisation that have managed to survive throughout the world in the arcs of the book.
This issue is great though because we see some of the animals that have been infected with the Z virus as well. I’m not recalling off the top of my head how animals on the show are seen reacting to the virus so that we’re seeing such behaviour out both a known predator and one that you’d never think of as a predator being one is a nice touch. Of course the ship and it’s current Captain would be stupid enough to keep an infected Polar Bear on board for shits and giggles.
The interior artwork here is really very good. I like the clean strong linework that we see in these pages it makes the story less silly and more credible. Plus we do get to see some nice zombie effect makeup stuff going on here and that spotlight on the creativity and imagination of Edu nicely. Also the use of page layouts through angles, perspective and even the backgrounds are very well done and help the flow of the story run smoothly.
The fact that the show doesn’t take itself too seriously and and has that blend of humour to go with the horror of it all is what makes it more fun to watch than that other zombie show. That the can capture that nicely in these pages as well is nice to see. It’s important that this feel like a companion to the show, at least for those of us who both read and watch, because in all honesty it’s really what makes the whole thing work. For example the skeet shooting exercise well that demonstrates both beautifully in my opinion.
It’s nice to see the characters given a chance to grow and evolve before our eyes. Still gotta wonder who is going to make it out alive and who isn’t but then nothing in this world is guaranteed. So i’m going to enjoy seeing how these mini groups cope with survival and how the government, where’s Citizen Z?, is trying to keep some semblance of itself. This creative team is doing a bangup job bringing this to life and making us want to see more!