Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
I know a lot of ZONErs like horror. I also know that many ZONErs enjoy westerns. When the genres are combined and the end result is a good as The Wicked West Volume 1 or The Wicked West Volume 2, everybody wins. Dead Irons may take us all back to victory lane!
Charlie Huston, one of my favorite writers, is the subject of 
Charlie Adlard, the artist on my favorite monthly comic, The Walking Dead, has jumped feet first into the 21st century and set up his own website!
ComicBookResources.com has an 18 page preview of Steve Niles new comic series: City of Dust: A Philip Khrome Story #1.
Crossed #0 [written by Garth Ennis with art by Jacen Burrows] is available now. That’s the wraparound cover by Jacen pictured above and it should give you a good idea of what to expect. At first glance, you might think it’s another zombie comic, but it’s not… at least not exactly.
An event happens which causes a good portion of the population to go crazy. Normal folks in a small town are suddenly surrounded by friends and neighbors killing each other and worse [much worse in some cases]. This introduction by Ennis is smart in that it places us in the middle of things as the insanity spreads. There are enough inspired touches that we understand that this is not a limited event and the world will never be the same. The most frightening scene in my opinion wasn’t any of the attacks by the infected, or the bomb blast, or the widespread shots of carnage all around. To me the most creepy shot was of a plane crashing — we see it strike a clock tower as it hurtles to the ground and then Jacen gives us a close up of the cockpit. In it we see two flight attendants in the background fighting, an infected passenger with an evil grin killing the co-pilot as the infected pilot laughs maniacally as he dives the plane into the ground.
Crossed was definitely good enough that I’ll be back for more. Jacen Burrows provides the pencils and inks and this is his best work yet. Greg Waller provides the colors and did a great job in capturing the mood of the book and complimenting Burrows’s line work. Garth Ennis’s story leaves me wanting more. He knows how to hit all the right notes but be aware that he’s not afraid of going over the line when it comes to shocking gore and violence.
Crossed isn’t for everyone. However fans of horror and the zombie genre [although the infected aren’t zombies… at least traditional zombies] might want to check it out. Issue 0 would be a great place to start. It’s only a buck and available now.
Duane Swierczynski posted a link to the full art above. Don’t ya just love how the drawing sets up the story. Logan, all alone, walks into a small town wanting nothing more than a cold beer and a place to rest. Instead he learns that a savage creature is on the loose killing everyone in the town… and now that Logan is in town…
Ah, finally success. A perfect score in the Scary Beginnings quiz.
It’s really hard to believe that The Walking Dead has been around for five years. But it has. And from the very first issue The Walking Dead been one of the best monthly comics published. Longtime ZONErs know that I’ve been singing it’s praises for years.In October, Image is coming out with the Volume 4 hard cover Walking Dead [which collects issues 37 – 48 of the series] as well as The Walking Dead: The Covers hard cover [which collects the first 50 covers, as well as the various collected edition covers plus sketch book material and commentary].
Arrrgh! Just missed a perfect score again. 8 out of 9. Knocked out of the Gold Medal slot by Bela Lugosi. Here’s
One of my favorite authors, Charlie Huston is the subject of this interview at FantasyBookCritic.
Huston’s new Joe Pitt novel, Every Last Drop comes out next month, so that’s probably the reason for the interview… and I guess
Every Last Drop could be classified as “fantasy” since it features modern day vampires. Still, if anyone asks me, its genre when I’m reading Every Last Drop, I’m going with “horror.”
The Pitch: “Mad Max“ meets your real life.
The Overview: Through a series of events [natural disasters, flu epidemic, wall street collapse, nuclear bombs blasts, etc.] the world as we know it is gone. Mortimer Tate, (formerly) an insurance salesman, has spent the last nine years alone in a cave. Tate saw the end coming and was prepared for it. Now after nine years, Tate is ready to venture out and see what, if anything, is left of civilization. Through his journey he will meet heroes, villains, survivalists, business men, cannibals, mad men and more. [Doesn’t sound like much has changed does it?]
The Good: Gischler provides just the right mix of horror, gore, and humor. // The pace is quick. // There are plenty of twists and just the right number of outrageous characters. // How the trains are powered. // “Jack Daniels: The Tradition Survives.” // “The man sitting in the throne stood to face Mortimer. He wasn’t ten feet tall, not even eight. But he was seven feet if he was an inch, and when he smiled, Mortimer saw the man’s teeth had been filed to points. He wore a leather vest, no shirt, muscles rippling like Conan. He had a square Frankenstein face, greasy hair. He carried a wooden club like a caveman’s. He wore a necklace of human ears and noses. Mortimer gulped. “Who dares come to see the Red Czar?” His voice was thunder.” – The next two paragraphs are worth the price of the book alone!
The Bad: What happens to trespassers. What happens to those caught by cannibals. And perhaps worst of all what happens after Ruth steps aside!
The Ugly: Mother Lola… oh, the horror, the horror.
The Summary: Victor Gischler is a very good writer. I’ve read Gun Monkeys and The Pistol Poets and would recommend them to those who enjoy crime novels. His latest, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse is even better. If the title alone doesn’t get you to run out and pick up a copy, then I’m curious as to why you’ve read this deep into my review. And if you’ve read this far, you know you gonna love the book!
If you want to know what’s up with Mike Mignola or Hellboy, then you might want to check out this interview at CBR.com.
Here’s a follow-up to this morning’s post about “30 Days of Night: 30 Days ’til Death.” It’s an interview with writer/artist David Lapham with more details on what we can expect from his new mini-series.
If you enjoyed 30 Days of Night [the graphic novel and/or the movie], then you might want to keep your eyes open for “30 Days of Night: 30 Days ’til Death” by award-winning writer/artist David [Stray Bullets] Lapham.
The basic set up is that the elders are getting fed up and organize kill squads to come to America and “thin the heard.” My story focuses on one vamp named Rufus who escapes the kill squad once and decides the only way to survive is to live ‘off the radar’… These are not traditional vampires with all the usual vampire rules. They’re just vicious creatures… Rufus is only a hero by way of comparison to what’s going on around him… but make no mistake, he is a vampire. When it comes down to it, he’s a horror show.
The Pitch: I was all set to go with “Hostel” meets “Little Shoppe of Horrors” without the comedy. Then I read Jeremy Butler’s pitch [at Chud.com] of “It’s ‘Hostel’ meets ‘Day of the Triffids’” and liked his better.The Overview: Two couples of young vacationing Americans meet a stranger who tells them about a little-known Mayan temple. The five of them decide to go out and take a look. Once there, bad things begin to happen. Very bad things.
The Good: The acting. The cast was made up of relative unkowns so it was possible that any of them could be killed at any point. The screenplay by Scott B. Smith based upon his novel of the same name [and which he changed up for the big screen]. The fact that you believed what was happening. That each of the bad things that happens to the characters basically stems from them trying to do a good thing or at least the right thing. That the movie takes you in one direction and suddenly you’re going in another and it works. You care about the characters.
The Bad: What happens when you’re trapped on the top of an ancient ruin by unfriendly locals and something much, much worse.
The Ugly: “He won’t last much longer like this. We’re gonna have to cut them off.” “Cut what off?” “His legs.”
The Summary: I love a good scary movie. I’m not much for gore. “The Ruins” is scary and contains gore. Some very gory scenes in fact. I really liked “The Ruins.” A lot. At some point I’ll add it to my movie collection. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes horror movies and doesn’t mind being a bit grossed out.
