Review: “Damn Nation”

“Damn Nation”
Writer: Andrew Cosby
Art: J. Alexander
Published by Dark Horse Books

In this nicely illustrated but by-the-numbers horror comic, a Soviet-made plague from the cold war era erupts in modern day America, turning the lower 48 into a quarantined and abandoned land of the… undead?

As with much contemporary horror, the creatures seem supernatural (like vampires, actually) but are created by biological agents. The story pits a hardened, guilt-ridden American solider against a ruthless, unemotional Brit, and throws in a Canadian rescue team, a smart-alecky military group a la “Aliens,” and an innocent child who turns out to be the naturally-evolved cure to the virus.

I just gave away a central plot point, but if you couldn’t see that coming from the second panel of the kid’s appearance (never mind wondering wtf the kid is doing in the country to begin with), then there will be plenty of other clichéd plot elements to surprise you.

Writer Andrew Cosby comes from a TV background, and he has a penchant for creating characters in broad, almost cartoonish strokes, who speak in a combination of exposition and slogans. He relies a lot on existing archetypes in horror and action stories, and doesn’t experiment much with the form. This is not really a problem if you’re looking for a casual horror-themed read. If you want something that pushes boundaries, though, look elsewhere; the story is so mainstream, with a succession of mini-climaxes that are anchored on familiar gimmicks, that it could be a made-for-TV movie on a cable network.

J. Alexander’s artwork is moody, dark, and fuzzy – a little like the messy chaos of the “30 Days of Night” comics, but with a more dynamic color palette that helps differentiate the various locations and times of day. A lot of people like this style, but I have mixed feelings about it. I can appreciate the artwork, but I find it difficult to parse. I want to see precise details, not panel after panel of gauzy, blurred sketches and color washes that seem created to capture tone more than details. But then again, I don’t like Impressionist art either, and this style of dark-and-muddy horror artwork is certainly impressionistic.

In general, if you prefer mainstream, action-oriented horror, and don’t mind (or even enjoy) the staples of modern action and horror movies, then you’ll enjoy “Damn Nation.” It’s a short comic, but seems to be presented as an opening book in a longer series. However, unlike the epic Walking Dead titles, this first book doesn’t develop characters or setting in enough detail to make the concept of a vampire-infested, deserted America very compelling to me (and believe me, I long for a vampire-infested America).

September 25, 2007 | Filed Under Arts & Entertainment, Comics & Graphic Novels, Reviews, Vampires | View Comments 

Review: “The Abandoned”

“The Abandoned”
Writer & Artist: Ross Campbell
Published by Tokyo Pop

There’s only so many ways to tell a zombie story, especially a beginning-of-the-end one: everything’s normal, then for no reason, it stops being normal and there are corpses attacking you. That’s pretty much it. Most recent work in this mini-genre has played with military or urban spins on the story, which sometimes work and sometimes just feel tired.

Ross Campbell’s grim graphic novel “The Abandoned” doesn’t try to do anything you haven’t already seen or read with zombie origin stories. However, where it’s strikingly different is in the writing – Campbell is remorseless with his characters, and his characters are flawed, indecisive young people who don’t know what the hell to do now that their lives are in danger.

The story takes place in a small southern island town in the days immediately following a hurricane. It’s the sort of place where outsiders and freaks stand out, and yet are oddly tolerated by the rest of the community. Rylie, the heroine, is not only black, but a teenaged lesbian. She’s short, super-curvy, and has a huge bat tattoo on her chest. On the other hand, she works at a small senior citizens center, helps out at her friend’s ice cream parlor, and is generally well-liked by at least some in the community.

When every adult in town dies without warning and immediately comes back with a taste for flesh, Rylie and her friends are left to fend for themselves. Isolated in a town half flooded by the hurricane, they barricade themselves together in a house and try to deal with the increasingly nasty situation.

The artwork is functional and straightforward. Occasionally, Campbell composes his panels so that time flows almost poetically, or at least cinematically, from one drawing to the next. At other times, it feels more like a storyboard. But this is a long graphic novel, and I think he gets the ratio of artistry to workmanship just right. The palette is only red and black throughout, which makes the gore pop violently off the page, and Campbell has a thing for drawing women with huge pouted lips and very round, fleshy breasts, which makes them all look both sensual and ordinary.

There’s no happy ending for Rylie, her love interest, or her motley crew of friends. None whatsoever. “The Abandoned” leaves enough open at the end for a sequel, but you’re not sure whether you need or want to see Rylie go through any more suffering – or that she’ll even manage to stay alive for another ten pages. It doesn’t seem written to launch a new money-making series for a publishing house, and it’s not even very camera-friendly, at least not according to commercial movie rules, which stipulate that the hero has to triumph or else the audience will leave depressed. However, it did make me care about the people in the story, and I felt genuinely bad as I read the last half of the book. That’s a compliment, by the way, and why I’d recommend it to anyone who likes serious dark horror.

February 18, 2007 | Filed Under Comics & Graphic Novels, Reviews, Zombies | View Comments 

← Previous Page