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

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Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle