Reviews
Pop culture has been in zombie/vampire/werewolf overdrive the past few years, and it’s pretty rare to find a story that has a unique twist on the mythos. iZombie, an ongoing series from Vertigo by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, isn’t the savior of the genre, but it does at least have a few original twists on some tired old archetypes. iZombie tells the story of Gwen Dylan, an undead gravedigger who has to eat brains once a month to keep from becoming a full-on shambling zombie horror. She doesn’t enjoy the taste at all, describing them as worse than “a cross between motor oil and someone else’s vomit”, but eating them keeps her sane and relatively normal, so she digs up the freshest grave once a month and does what she feels is necessary. One unfortunate side effect of brain-eating is that the memories of the deceased come along for the ride, and she finds herself compelled to finish their unfinished business. When the story opens, she eats the brains of a man who may have been murdered, and sets out to solve the mystery. Gwen’s only friends are Ellie, a ghost-girl who died forty years ago and dresses like one of Austin Powers’ backup dancers, and Scott (aka ‘Spot’), who turns into a “were-terrier” during the full moon, which mostly just means he becomes embarrassingly hirsute. They live in a version of Eugene, Oregon overflowing with supernatural beings; the paintball place down the road is run by a coven of vampires that look like former sorority girls, and a mysteriously menacing man wrapped in bandages may be an ancient Egyptian mummy. Naturally, there are also monster hunters thrown into the mix, one of whom becomes a possible love interest for Gwen, which will surely lead to further complications down the line. The art, done by the inimitable Michael Allred, is gorgeous, full of thick black lines and his signature Madman style. One particularly impressive spread in the middle of the book shows Gwen walking through the memories of another character. The memories are shown as individual panels in the comic, but are printed in an exaggerated halftone. Gwen seems to exist above the panels, standing between or on top of each individual memory. Allred’s art is easily my favorite part of this book. The story is good, but mostly setup. The mystery established at the start doesn’t amount to very much, and many of the plot threads in this initial volume are not resolved. However, the explanation of the overal supernatural mythos is thoughtful, and most of the creatures are given an interesting twist. Only the vampires seem particularly cliche – too-beautiful women preying on lonely men. I think there’s potential here, however; Roberson establishes enough interesting threads that I look forward to reading future volumes.
Pese a que no soy gran fan de los zombies la historia me atrapó bastante. Me gustaron las ilustraciones, me quedé más de 20 minutos viendo solo un detalle en la cara de algún personaje. Sin duda estoy emocionada por empezar el siguiente tomo :D
I'd definitely continue. It reminds me enough of the TV series (which I love) to stick with it.
I almost skipped writing a review on this book because I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. It took me, like, half the book to get invested in it at all. Beginnings are sometimes slow, so I’ll let it pass as a non-issue, especially because half a graphic novel isn’t actually all that much story wise. After that boring beginning part, though, we start getting more of the meat of the story and it becomes less of a book to finish and more of a book to enjoy. The story is rather unique. I’ve never read anything like it before. There’s zombies, vampires, ghosts, et cetera but not even close to the normal way they’re usually displayed in movies and books. I feel like this book has a solid basis for how all these paranormal creatures come to be and that makes me like it a lot and want to continue with the series. Trust me, they’re not present for the reasons you think they are. Not in this book/series, at least. The story is told through the point of view of Gwen, who is, if you haven’t guessed already, a zombie. She has to eat a brain a month to keep from turning into a shambling, mindless zombie like the ones we are all accustomed to. That’s where it’s really interesting. Our culture isn’t used to seeing intelligent zombies (well, maybe yours is, but mine isn’t), but Gwen still seems very much human with a weird predicament. “Seems” being the keyword because she is, in fact, not a living human anymore. (No plot twists there, friends. Sorry.) Gwen’s a pretty likable character and I’m really looking forward to seeing what else happens in her life. There’s also Ellie, the ghost, who died several decades in the past. I love, love, love Ellie and seriously hope there will be lots more of her in future books. Because even though Gwen is cool, Ellie is totally my favorite. She’s so sweet. Not to mention I love her hair and all the clothes she’s always dressed in. Sigh. As for the artwork, it’s what you’d expect in a typical color graphic novel. It’s pretty, but nothing really out of the ordinary. This novel is really great about keeping it realistic and non-sexualized in the graphics… except for, of course, when they add in the gratuitous changing scene where we basically see Gwen naked. I’m not sure why it had to be so explicit (for a book, at least), but it is and the age group this graphic novel is suitable for was knocked up several years because of it. (And guys, I’m far from a prude. The nudity is nothing to someone my age. I mean it’s really not that bad unless you’re, like, 13 years old.) As a whole I’m impressed with where this series seems to be going and I really hope it’ll keep my interest into the other books. If you like stories about zombies (or other paranormal creatures) I advise you to give this series a try. It really has a very interesting take on the living dead situation.
I very much enjoyed this graphic novel and I can't wait to get my hands on volume 2
