Written by Jean-Paul Bonjour and Jeff Roenning
Illustrated by Robert LoveThe action-packed second issue opens with our heroine getting her first taste of the new apocalyptic world. On the run from rabid women and mysterious men in black rubber suits, Judith flees to the suburbs where she meets Frank, a sex starved teenager with a horrible secret. Joining forces, the two teens set out to evade evisceration and find Judith’s brother!
Even worse than Feminazis, these are Feminazizombies! Oh the horror! It’s a mouthful too!
The unconventional zombie epic continues this week, so check out our review beyond the cut.
I’m not really sure where this book is going, to put it bluntly. Most books use the first issue to set up the action in the previous issues, but the story, which tells the tale of a fragrance which turns women into raging green monsters bent on killing anyone with a penis, stalls until about halfway through the book. Conceptually, it could be the mirror of Vertigo-classic “Y: The Last Man,” which had women surviving in an environment without men. Here they are active, albeit unwilling participants in the destruction of the opposite gender.
However, where “Y” hit the ground running and told a wonderful story from the get-go, this issue spends too much time setting up the universe itself, telling various vignettes in the world while that doesn’t really set forward the narrative in any meaningful way. Judith, our main character spends the first third of the book telling us the various things she sells that contain her bodily fluids, from cups filled with her saliva to used tampons. While this will no doubt offend some and disgust others, it doesn’t really bother me in that sense, I just don’t really understand the need for it to be contained in the book other than for shock value.
Shock value seems to be the main commodity in the book. Characters are introduced solely for the purpose of telling a short one act interlude where the character in question has a fetish or disturbing sexual demand, and then they have a quick resolution to that story. Judith’s co-worker, for instance, has a foot fetish (an underage one at that) but it doesn’t go beyond that. Will we see more of this disturbing cast of characters? Who knows, really? We might, but for now, they don’t add anything to the story.
The saving grace in the book is the art. Considering its subject matter, the book “Chew” was a natural inspiration, both from its off depraved offbeat humor and the pencils from Robert Love. The book itself looks absolutely gorgeous. The faux cartoony look helps mitigate some of the grisly scenes in the book and even adds to the sense of humor. Love was a real find for the book, and he adds a lot to the final score, possibly more than the script.
The writing, like I’ve said many times in this review, is lacking. When the story finally kicks into gear, it actually becomes a fun zombie romp throughout their town. The violence even works, because of the horror-genre being latched to it, but just when you think you’ve been sucked into a good comic, you walk in on the cover character masturbating and you realize once again just what it is you’re reading.
If you like cartoonish series telling a decidedly less than cartoonish story, pick it up and leaf through, but be careful before you buy.
Final Verdict: 5.5 – Browse
