Tag Archives: almost dead

Around the Tubes

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Almost Dead #1

It’s new comic book day! What are you all getting? What are you excited for? Sound off in the comments below. While you wait for shops to open, here’s some comic news and a review from around the web.

Book Riot – That Time Green Lantern Fought a Little Girl Who Was Also Richard Nixon – Well ok then.

Publishers Weekly – Marjane Satrapi Centers a New Graphic Anthology on the Women of Iran – This could be really interesting.

The Comics Journal – Photos from the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival: Small + Indie Press 2023 – Anyone go? What did you think?

The Mary Sue – Pink Will Hand Out 2,000 Copies of Banned Books at Florida Concerts – Good.

Review

The Beat – Almost Dead #1

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!

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

Ablaze launches Almost Dead, a post apocalyptic horror series

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ALMOST DEAD #1

story by Galaxy
artwork by Ryan Benjamin
SRP: $3.99
Available September 6th   

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 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 a typical apocalyptic story. It adeptly weaves conspiracy with historical flashbacks and shows how perhaps everything we’ve learned in textbooks has been altered over time.

ALMOST DEAD #1