Tag Archives: ablaze

Traveling to Mars #9 again shows why this is the best comic on the shelf right now

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Roy tries to make sense of his time on Earth and figure out what his mission on Mars really is during the last few days of his life.

Story: Mark Russell
Art: Roberto Meli
Color: Chiara Di Francia
Letterer: Mattia Gentili

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

TFAW
Zeus Comics
Kindle

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site

Almost Dead #1 reads like a bad point and click game

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Almost Dead #1

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 during 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 #1 is a rough start that feels more like playing a point and click game than reading a comic.

In the solicit for Almost Dead #1, it says it “redefines the genre, with its cinematic approach and attention to detail.” Having read the first issue, it feels more like a step back and missing a lot of details instead.

Written by Galaxy, Almost Dead #1 is your typical zombie horror comic that teases it might be something else. Sara arrives in Maryland and falls in the bathroom hitting her head. During her recovery, all hell breaks loose as the zombie apocalypse descends. When she eventually comes through, she walks around rather oblivious remarking about luggage and cars left around but not noticing much else. All of it hints this might be in Sara’s head but until things are shown otherwise, it’s the details and dialogue that add to a frustrating start.

The comic boasts its “attention to detail” but throughout there’s small details that are missed. Sara loses a shoe which is mentioned later but that shoe just mysteriously comes off. It’s not shown off her foot or around her when she wakes up, she’s just missing it. In the car she takes, in one panel the back hatch is open, perfect for zombies to climb in and kill her while she’s passed out but when she wakes up the hatch is closed. When she lands in her plane it deboards on the tarmac!? Unless it’s a tiny plane, and this doesn’t look like it, not likely. And generally there’s no reason to present the scene like that.

Then there’s the narrative that switches between Sara’s thoughts in her head to eventually what reads like details you’d get when playing a point and click video game. It’s a jarring switch that makes little to no sense at all when it comes to the storytelling itself.

The art by Ryan Benjamin is good but doesn’t stand out too much. There’s all this damage and destruction as Sara shuffles her way to the destination but the comic never uses its visuals to really tell a story. We get some zombie looking people here and there but overall the world feels a bit too empty and clean for whatever has happened over the three days Sara was passed out. It feels more Rapture than zombies.

Almost Dead #1 kicks things off with an opening we’ve seen many times before and it just doesn’t do it well. When there’s so many options out there for this type of story, it doesn’t make a case this is the one you should check out and stick with.

Story: Galaxy Art: Ryan Benjamin
Story: 6.0 Art: 7.5 Overall: 6.0 Recommendation: Pass

Ablaze provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle

Graphic Policy’s Top Comic Picks this Week!

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Faceless and the Family #1

Wednesdays (and Tuesdays) are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in

Each week our contributors choose what they can’t wait to read this week or just sounds interesting. In other words, this is what we’re looking forward to and think you should be taking a look at!

Find out what folks think below, and what comics you should be looking out for this week.

Almost Dead #1 (Ablaze) – 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.

Blood Commandment #1 (Image Comics) – Living an isolated life in a shadowed valley surrounded by mountains and a thick forest, a father and son are terrorized by a dangerous supernatural presence. Only the father’s dark secrets can save them…or damn their souls for all eternity!

Count Dante #4 (Scout Comics) – The series has done an amazing job of balancing fact and fiction in the world of martial arts and based on a true story.

Dying Days #1 (Red 5 Comics) – It’s the ultimate race against time! When “The Aging” starts, people are aging at a rapid rate. Can the cause and solution be found, before it’s too late?

Faceless and the Family #1 (Oni Press) – Matt Lesniewski’s art alone will suck you in.

A Haunting on Mars #1 (Scout Comics) – Mars is a wasteland: A dead colony, founded by a dead billionaire, holding darkness and secrets within. Secrets which Echo Team are sent to uncover. A hacker. A psionic. An empath. A soldier. And their corpo loyalist leader. They’ve crashed far from the LZ and their sanity’s already unraveling!

It’s Jeff: The Jeff-Verse #1 (Marvel) – The first issue was really cute and a lot of fun and we’re hoping for more of that.

Ranger Academy #2 (BOOM! Studios) – The first issue was a lot of fun with a familiar concept of an outsider arriving at a school. In this case, it’s one dealing with the Power Rangers.

Red Light #1 (AWA Studios) – Get ready for a red-hot futuristic erotic thriller that sits at the intersection of sex and tech!

Return of Superman 30th Anniversary Special (DC Comics) – It should be fun to revisit this classic period with the creators behind it.

Savage Red Sonja #1 (Dynamite Entertainment) – Tasked with retrieving a long-hidden gem from a crumbled, ancient kingdom, the She-Devil With a Sword is traveling alone through a dangerous wasteland when fate intervenes, and her solo adventure is sidetracked by a wayward prince and his bride as they try desperately to escape from fearsome desert bandits – only to be attacked by a monstrous beast from beneath the sands!

Space Between #1 (BOOM! Studios) – Two individuals from two different social castes meet aboard an interstellar ark.

Spider-Boy #1 (Marvel) – We haven’t paid too much attention to the character, but we’re intrigued to see where the long game goes with him.

Stories of the Islands (Holiday House) – In Stories of the Islands, debut graphic novelist Clar Angkasa takes three folk tales from her childhood in Indonesia and gives them back to the girl characters, following their hopes, dreams, and journeys for independence from malevolent forces-both natural and unnatural.

Traveling to Mars #9 (Ablaze) – One of the best comics on the market right now.

Ultimate Universe #1 (Marvel) – While the recent limited series left us unimpressed, this first issue is actually solid and more of what we were looking for.

Unnatural Order #1 (Vault Comics) – After the fall of the Britons and the Roman invasion of Hibernia, the captive known only as the Druid is released, sending a darkness across the world…an age of horrors, of fire and entrails.

White Widow #1 (Marvel) – Yelena Belova gets the spotlight!

Weekly Preview! Lots of graphic novels!

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There are a lot of comics coming out every week to be covered. Check out some of what we’ll be reviewing and this is only the beginning!

This week’s reviews include:

  • History Comics World War II (First Second)
  • Middle Distance (SelfMadeHero)
  • School for Extraterrestrial Girls Vol. 1 Girl on Fire (Papercutz)
  • Science Comics: Frogs (First Second)
  • Stories of the Islands (Holiday House)

Not shown:

  • Traveling to Mars #9 (Ablaze)
  • The Walking Dead Deluxe #76 (Skybound)

Already reviewed:

  • Faceless and the Family #1 (Oni Press)
  • I May Be a Guild Receptionist but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock out on Time Vol. 1 (Yen Press)
  • The Villainess Stans the Heroes Playing the Antagonist to Support her Faves! Vol. 2 (Yen Press)
  • Why is Everybody Yelling? Growing Up in My Immigrant Family (Farrar Straus Giroux)

Yen Press, Papercutz, Holiday House, Farrar Straus Giroux, and First Second provided Graphic Policy with FREE copies for review

The Prism #1 is an interesting concept with good art but feels like a teaser issue

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Noise pollution is crushing life on earth. The largest mega-corporation on the planet finances a crazy project called The P.R.I.S.M. (Purifying Recording Interplanetary Space Mission) to combat the phenomenon: sending a musical supergroup into space to record an album that will produce sounds able to push back the threat known as S.O.T.W. (Smoke on the Water) and save the planet. Where rock’n’roll excess and the survival of all life on Earth collide, there is…THE PRISM!

Story: Matteo De Longis
Art: Matteo De Longis
Letterer: Officine Bolzoni

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Zeus Comics
Kindle

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site

Crowdfunding Corner: Ablaze brings Masaaki Ninomiya’s Gannibal to Kickstarter

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Backer Beware: Crowdfunding projects are not guaranteed to be delivered and/or delivered when promised. We always recommend to do your research before backing.

Comics and graphic novel publisher Ablaze is bringing Masaaki Ninomiya’s modern day horror manga masterpiece Gannibal to Kickstarter. The bestselling 13-volume horror manga series, published in Japan by Nihon Bungeisha, has become a worldwide hit with publications in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Brazil, Korea, and Thailand, and will now make its highly anticipated English-language debut, with limited edition hardcovers available only via Kickstarter. Fans can support the project o Kickstarter.

A terrifying thriller series rich in tension and suspense, Gannibal has been adapted into a live-action TV series, directed by Shinzo Katayama (director of J-horror movie Missing) that currently streams on Disney+/Hulu and stars Yuya Yagira, Sho Kasamatsu, and Riho Yoshioka. In the series, Daigo Agawa is a resident police officer who has been recently assigned to the remote mountain village of Kuge. He is initially warmly welcomed by the villagers, but with the suspicious death of an old woman, he gradually becomes aware of the anomaly of the village and begins to suspect that “The people in this village are eating people.”

Almost Dead – Post Apocalyptic Horror Comic Book Series Launches November 1st

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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 during 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.   

Relentlessly vicious, Almost Dead isn’t your typical apocalyptic story. Tying in conspiracy with historical flashbacks and showing how perhaps everything we learned in our textbooks has been altered over time.

Featuring a story by Galaxy, art by Ryan Benjamin, and published by Ablaze, Almost Dead #1 debuts on November 1st.

Almost Dead #1

Crowdfunding Corner: Ablaze brings Masaaki Ninomiya’s Gannibal to Kickstarter

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Backer Beware: Crowdfunding projects are not guaranteed to be delivered and/or delivered when promised. We always recommend to do your research before backing.

Gannibal Vol. 1

Comics and graphic novel publisher Ablaze is bringing Masaaki Ninomiya’s modern day horror manga masterpiece Gannibal to Kickstarter. The bestselling 13-volume horror manga series, published in Japan by Nihon Bungeisha, has become a worldwide hit with publications in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Brazil, Korea, and Thailand, and will now make its highly anticipated English-language debut, with limited edition hardcovers available only via Kickstarter. Fans can follow the pre-launch page to receive an email when the project launches on Kickstarter. 

A terrifying thriller series rich in tension and suspense, Gannibal has been adapted into a live-action TV series, directed by Shinzo Katayama (director of J-horror movie Missing) that currently streams on Disney+/Hulu and stars Yuya Yagira, Sho Kasamatsu, and Riho Yoshioka. In the series, Daigo Agawa is a resident police officer who has been recently assigned to the remote mountain village of Kuge. He is initially warmly welcomed by the villagers, but with the suspicious death of an old woman, he gradually becomes aware of the anomaly of the village and begins to suspect that “The people in this village are eating people.”

Traveling to Mars #8 shows why this is one of the best comics out right now!

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Who will be the first person to travel to Mars? There’s work going on now to determine who that might be in reality. Traveling to Mars is that story, with a twist.

In Traveling to Mars #8, the Erinhon arrives on Mars, but unforeseen circumstances threaten Roy’s mission.

Story: Mark Russell
Art: Roberto Meli
Color: Chiara Di Francia
Letterer: Mattia Gentili

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

TFAW
Zeus Comics
Kindle

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale. Graphic Policy does purchase items from this site. Making purchases through these links helps support the site

Graphic Policy’s Top Comic Picks this Week!

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The Blackout Bombshell #1

Wednesdays (and Tuesdays) are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in

Each week our contributors choose what they can’t wait to read this week or just sounds interesting. In other words, this is what we’re looking forward to and think you should be taking a look at!

Find out what folks think below, and what comics you should be looking out for this week.

Al Capone (Black Panel Press) – The history of the famous mobster is explored here! As fans of mob stories, we’re pumped to check this out.

The Blackout Bombshell #1 (Massive Publishing) – After a night of drinking turned into a blank slate, Jack must put together what exactly he’s gotten himself into before he ends up in a world of trouble. Sounds like the type of detective story we enjoy.

Captain America #1 (Marvel) – It’s a new volume for Cap and a new creative team and we’re always excited to see what a new crew brings to the classic character.

Dark X-Men #2 (Marvel) – The first issue was a lot of fun, as much fun as Fall of X can be, and we’re excited and hoping the second issue brings the same.

Disney Villains: Hades #2 (Dynamite Entertainment) – The first issue was solid with a great look and great feel as it focuses on the overlooked and under appreciated Disney villain.

Green Lantern: War Journal #1 (DC Comics) – John Stewart gets his own series the the debut issue is a hell of a start.

Hexagon Bridge #1 (Image Comics) – Explorers Jacob and Elena Armlen find themselves trapped in a strange parallel dimension of elusive landscapes and shifting architecture inhabited by mischievous entities.

Investigators Vol. 7 All Tide Up (First Second) – This series is so much fun with over the top action and cool gadgets. It’s great for kids and adults alike!

Jungle Juice Vol. 1 (Yen Press/IZE Press) – It’s pretty much the X-Men but insect/human hybrids instead of mutants. And, it still works and is a hell of a lot of fun.

Predator vs. Wolverine #1 (Marvel) – Let’s be honest, this is a comic store debate in comic form.

Rare Flavours #1 (BOOM! Studios) – Discover the tantalizing tale of Rubin Baksh, a demonic Rakshasa with a down-to-earth dream of becoming the next Anthony Bourdain. The comic sounds pretty unique and with Ram V. writing and Filipe Andrade on art, we’re excited to check it out.

Rumpus Room #1 (AWA Studios) – Meet Bob Schrunk, technocrat billionaire, collector of bad art, and victim of a hideous skin condition that can only be treated with a highly illicit and definitely not FDA-approved face cream that must be…harvested. From human beings. It’s Mark Russell… that alone has us reading this.

So What’s Wrong Getting Reborn as a Goblin Vol. 3 (Yen Press) – The series has been a nice twist on the reincarnation story focused on how to build and organize a society.

Tomb Raider King Vol. 4 (Yen Press) – The volume wraps up one story line and kicks off a hell of a lot more. Fans of the series won’t want to miss this!

Traveling to Mars #8 (Ablaze) – Mark Russell and Roberto Meli’s series has been filled with emotion and heart… and some laughs and satire.

Wonder Woman #1 (DC Comics) – We’ve read the first issue and this is a game changer for status quo… it helps it’s really good too.

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