REVIEW: ALMOST DEAD #1
0
0
Story: Galaxy | Art: Ryan Benjamin | Inks: John Livesay | Colors: Sivakami M at NS Studios | Lettering: Saida Temofonte | Cover Artist: Tyler Kirkham | Publisher: Ablaze
Solicitation: Somewhere between pure exhilaration and sheer terror is Almost Dead!
After having an accident on her way home to visit her family, Sara Walker awakens to find that the world has changed. Now she must travel up the Eastern Seaboard, using suppressed survival skills she learned as a child, in hopes of reuniting with her loved ones in the midst of a viral pandemic that has turned humans into monsters. Set in modern day 2005, Sara unites with old acquaintances and new friends along the way, and her struggle to survive will be both an unexpectedly exciting journey and an absolute horror.
Almost Dead is a new post-apocalyptic horror-drama adventure about triumph, growth and the resiliency of the human spirit brought to you by writer and Comic Con Radio / Spoiler Magazine founder Galaxy and Eisner nominated artist Ryan Benjamin (Batman Beyond, Star Wars, X-Men, Grifter) that redefines the genre, with its cinematic approach and attention to detail.
Relentlessly vicious, Almost Dead isn’t your typical apocalyptic story. Tying in conspiracy with historical flashbacks and showing how perhaps everything we’ve learned in our textbooks has been altered over time.
Thoughts: Whenever you pick up the first issue of a new series, you’re always taking a chance and stepping into the unknown. ALMOST DEAD #1 is an interesting jaunt into a world taken over by zombie-like monsters and a woman’s attempts at survival. The concept is sound, but the execution fails to stick the landing.
While I haven’t heard of Galaxy before, I do know Ryan Benjamin and have always loved his art in the past. This issue does not hinder that appreciation for Benjamin’s art. Every page, the art shines and makes me wonder why Benjamin hasn’t been on a series more recently. The coloring by Sivakami M is solid and it works well with Benjamin’s linework, and Livesay’s inks. ALMOST DEAD has a top notch artistic team, but that’s where the highlights stop unfortunately.
The concept based on the solicitations for this book sounds like it could be entertaining, if not intriguing, given a strong writer. The heartbreaker here is that Galaxy is not providing a lot of strong dialogue or situations that help develop the story for a first issue. There needs to be a hook somewhere in the book that pulls in the reader, and in the catalog of zombie stories you have to hook readers with something very new and fresh. This first issue does none of that. It is a very cookie cutter issue, and that’s disappointing.
Overall, there’s potential with this series. The art is great and deserves an audience. The unfortunate problem is that if someone picks this up for the art, I don’t know if they’ll stick around for the story.
