Rating: 4/5 – A different kind of zombie comic.
Deadworld is one of the longer running zombie franchises in comics, it started at Arrow Comics in 1987, so it pre-dates The Walking Dead which started in 2003 by 16 years! It hasn’t been continuously published, but has had a decent number of issues come out from a variety of publishers, IDW being its current home, published in cooperation with Deperado Publishing.
We’re in a standard post-apocalyptic “zombies running wild” situation, but the difference here is the zombies are not mindless slow-moving flesh-eaters. They have intelligence and are led by King Zombie. Well, they were led by King Zombie, but he was destroyed in a recent series and they’re now under the control of a human/zombie hybrid named Donna. This makes for an interesting dynamic in the humans vs. zombies struggle since there’s intelligence leading the zombie forces, not just a slavering mindless horde to be fought. The humans need to be even MORE organized in order to stand a chance against this foe.
Gary Reed does a good job writing this series, it’s a decent jumping on point for new readers, especially considering there have been 100 or so issues published in the franchise to date. We get introduced to the major players for this series and even though I’ve not picked up an issue of Deadworld since the early 90s I was able to follow along with the story just fine.
Sami Makkonen’s wonderfully moody art is a standout that made this issue particularly enjoyable for me. His style is reminiscent of Ben Templesmith or Ashley Wood. Slightly abstract in places, strong character design, and perfect for this kind of action/horror book, you can check out some samples of his art here. If you like zombies, horror, and/or post-apocalyptic stories you should definitely be checking this series out.
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall – bob@comicspectrum.com
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