Die and Die #1 is not all your typical zombie comics. I say this is not out of exaggeration, but adore. Unlike rough dramas fueled by the Walking Dead and the mystery underlying the revival, this is more of a character work than anything else. Living deaths are part of this, but in a sense the readers are not expecting it.
Every opening of Death and Death feels more like a neo-western rather than a horror comic. Farmer Jack Chandler has her through agent, telling her daughter Daisy about how she met her husband Luke, and is able to build her own farm. When residents of Jack’s community begin to contract with a mysterious illness, and eventually become greedy, rotten, carnivorous.
This setup is where creators Tate Brombal and Jacob Phillips Zig become Zag. Jack doesn’t kill the undead, he lives among them. Cutting the heads from the rotten chickens, the former neighbor saved the meat for a fieast feast, and continued to care for the farm. Blombar slowly unveils this new world, giving readers a peak in Jack’s mind and explains why others are on the path they consider to be crazy.
One of the standout moments is when Jack recalls his father showing him an entire view of the small town and tells him it’s the whole world. Jack then reveals that his mother had taken him to town, which shakes his perception. “But my father wasn’t lying. It’s not,” he muse. “No, what else did a man like him have? Only the forests and farmland.” Bronball is built on this thinking, showing how Jack’s world is contracted with people in his community, and how the zombie plague doesn’t change it.
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All sentences of death and death are not the only draw. Best known for his crime saga with Ed Brubaker, Phillips brings his simple yet impressive style to a world of terror. Through the opening page, Jack’s fairy tale to Daisy is separated by the harsh noise of a shovel digging deep into the earth, and finally reaches its peak with a page where Jack kneels above an empty tomb. If that’s not enough, Pip Martin’s colour begins to shift, growing from warm pastels and clear skies to a bloody red aura that arose the rise of the undead. These are truly awful zombies, as Phillips paints them with fiery red and black eyes and peeled flesh, accompanied by the intrusive sight of Aditya Bidical’s twisted word balloons.
Phillips also shows the toll this is taking on Jack. When we first met him, he was a young, relatively tied peasant. Now there is a bag under his eyes, a stubble dotted on his face, a quiet despair remains above him. This sets the final moments of the book. This threatens Jack to overturn the life that was built for him, or offers salvation that he didn’t need. In any case, everything is dead and almost dying #1 is a breath of fresh air for the zombie genre, let alone a truly fascinating story.
“Everything is dead and almost dying” #1 is a heartbreaking spin in the zombie genre
All #1 to die and die
Dead and dying #1 is all a breath of fresh air for the zombie genre. Not to mention a truly fascinating story.
Brombal slowly unveils major twists, building suspense and fear equally.
Phillips easily switches from crime fiction to horror, delivering some truly terrifying images along the way.
A colour that slowly moves from bright shades to blood reds announces the rise of the undead.
One of the most unique zombie stories you’ll read for years.
