Cover Art |
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Credits |
Publisher:
Writers: Joel Moen and Mark Kidwell
Art: Mark Kidwell
Issues: 3 |
Wow. What a horrible disappointment. I want
my half-hour back!
Comics are a fickle thing when it comes to covers
(we all know the saying) so I gave this one the
benefit of the doubt in spite of some sizeable
trepidation. Bad move. Really bad move. I really
love Night of the Living Dead - the remake is easily one of my favourite zombie
movies (don't get me wrong, the original
is a classic, but the remake stands better for
repeated viewing in my books) and a large amount
of what has spun from it in terms of literature
has made for really good reading. This however,
is a complete travesty.
Barbara's Zombie Chronicles takes place five years after the original Night
of the Living Dead, and seems to completely
ignore everything that came from Dawn and Day (aside from little nods
– but nothing tangible in terms of continuity).
The world is overrun, and somehow only rednecks
and crazy people have survived. As implied in
the title, the book focuses on Barbara –
the traumatized blonde of the 1968 original –
who has come full circle since her initial night
with the living dead, now toting firearms and
sporting tank-tops in a way not seen since Ellen
Ripley of the Aliens films. The
moment I saw this (roughly five pages in), everything
became abundantly clear. This comic was going
to be trouble.
As is usually the problem with horror comics, Night of the Living Dead: Barbara's
Zombie Chronicles starts off very nicely,
with a fairly accurate recap of the horror that
Barbara witnessed in the original film. Everyone
is recognizable, including (and with amazing accuracy)
the Cemetery Zombie, but once Barbara snaps to
and yanks us out of the dream sequence, all that
comes to an end. Here, you are slapped in the
face with the most immediate and serious problem:
the artwork is awful. "Scrub-my-eyes-with-steel-wool"
awful. Mad Magazine caricatures are more proportionately
accurate than the people in this book, and anything
that should be scary or horrific inspires about
as much reaction as a death in an Argento film;
gory, but over the top, cheap and ugly, and doesn't
really "frighten" anyone who may be
viewing. The zombies that plague the world also
don't exactly instil fear the way they normally
would. In fact, for being the dominant genus or
race they're notably absent for large chunks
of the book, more often referred to in overly
drawn out anecdotes than actually shown. Okay,
sure, the focus here is Barbara, but this is still Night of the Living Dead.
Unfortunately, as the artwork begins it's
downward spiral early on in the piece, it takes
the story with it, ultimately squandering in a
finale that completely throws away any notion
of suspension of disbelief. Part of the charm
and intrigue permeating Romero's original
trilogy was the fact that no-one could give a
solid answer as to why the dead were returning
to life. Night of the Living Dead: Barbara's
Zombie Chronicles goes right ahead and
does that for you, and the result is worse than
what Day of the Dead: Contagium offers up. Chronicles decides to run with the
"cosmic radiation from a downed satellite"
theory put forth by news reports in the film.
All well and good, until you get to the third
act and everything packs it's bags for Wackyland.
Suddenly, aliens are responsible for the virus,
but not just any aliens… zombie aliens!
While the idea is great for comics, it really,
really, falls flat on it's ugly face here,
and immediately yanks you out of any feeling that
you may have been reading something from Romero's Living Dead continuity.
Gorehounds don't really have that much
to look forward to either. Usually sub par horror
comics lean towards the "light on story,
heavy on gory" way of thinking; unfortunately
a step in that direction may have saved this comic.
There is gore and violence, just nowhere near
what you'd expect from something involving
Romero zombies, and it plays second fiddle to
the exorbitant amount of dialogue. Some pages
are so packed with words that you forget to look
at the pictures they're smothering, and
one would be easily forgiven for thinking that
they'd momentarily slipped into reading
a piece of non-visual prose. A couple of pages
in the second and third parts actually managed
to elicit a frustrated groan as some of the dialogue
is so bad and long winded that it actually feels
like a task having to read it. You just want something
good to happen!
Unfortunately for us, nothing does, and ultimately
the book feels like a waste of time and money.
There is some good with the bad though; in spite
of having an (awful, confusing, and stupid) open
ending, the book sold such poor numbers that the
implied continuation never came. At $4.95 U.S.
the book is a complete rip-off. Even completists
can put their money to better use than wasting
it on this shit. Bottom line is, this is an ugly
piece of work in just about every way imaginable.
Don't even bother.
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