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Max Brooks Announces: Extinction Parade War

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Avatar Press has announced that New York Times bestselling author Max Brooks, unleashes the next exciting chapter of his Zombies vs. Vampires comic book series Extinction Parade: War in July.  Brooks has been a driving force behind the resurgence in zombie interest over the last decade with his seminal prose works The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z.  Fans have flocked to his novels and panel presentations to get the latest undead survival techniques from the charismatic master scholar.

This is the horrifying continuation of Brooks’ groundbreaking series chronicling the breaking point for vampires as the privileged aristocratic race of immortals is finally forced to face a critical realization – that the human race won’t solve the zombie plague without their aid.  And when these powerful undead creatures are finally mobilized the violent clash of Vampires and Zombies is summed up best in the new chapter’s subtitle:  War.

Brooks explains the philosophy behind exposing the weaknesses of the vampire race in Extinction Parade: War, “Every individual human being knows life is hard. Sooner or later adversity’s gonna come knocking. But if you’re a vampire you’ve had a thousand years of comfortable joy. You’re not ready! You don’t have those survival skills.”

Extinction Parade: War #1 is a super-sized July shipping comic book that continues the story of Extinction Parade following issue #5.  War #1 includes the previously solicited single issue comics content of Extinction Parade #6 & #7 which have been cancelled.  Fans who want to step into the terrifying world of Max Brooks’ Extinction Parade can do so with the electrifying first chapter of the story in the Extinction Parade Trade Paperback Collection also shipping in July and available for pre-order it now from your favorite retailer! Available at comic shops and retailers including Amazon.com and BN.com

About Extinction Parade:

In a world where the zombie plague has put the human race on the endangered species list, another predatory undead species realizes that to stand by idly means the end of their food supply.  Vastly outnumbered by the zombie hordes, vampires descend into all-out subdead war, with humanity caught in the crossfire.  This series further examines Brooks’ fascination with the lethal races of the undead and brings his unique voice to comics at a time when horror fiction is at an all-time high in popularity.

Extinction Parade, a softcover graphic novel with color interiors, 6.5″ x 9.5″, 160 pages.

– ISBN 978-1-59291-234-6

– $19.99 (US)

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Review: Max Brook’s The Extinction Parade #1

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ExtinctionParade1It’s finally here – the long awaited first issue of Max Brooks’ new Zombies vs. Vampires series, Extinction Parade!  Perfectly timed for the theatrical release of World War Z, Brooks unleashes his talents on a new series that takes his familiar and past subject of zombies and adds the elements of zombies. As a huge fan of his book World War Z, I couldn’t wait to read the comic, but is it any good?

Vampires have always been the elite of the undead.  These apex predators have never feared foe or lack of food…until now.  By remaining too out of touch with the modern world they have failed to notice the subdead zombie race turning the tide over the human population.  Now, perhaps too late, the vampires must stop the encroaching shambling dead or find themselves starved out of existence.

I went into the comic brimming with excitement and hoping we’d get Brooks’ spin on the vampire mythos. This story is pretty simple. With vampires existing and needing humans to survive, wouldn’t they protect their cattle from zombies which threaten existence? That makes sense to me, and when I got to the end of the comic I was a bit mixed in my feelings.

The first issue does a lot to set up vampires in this world, and does so in an interesting style. In the full comic, there’s all of 15 speech bubbles on 3 or 4 total pages. The rest of the comic is written as inner monologue. It reads more like a prose book with pictures with that. Next is the motivation of the vampires. It gives us their personality and the world they inhabit, but I didn’t get a sense they were any urgent rush to protect the humans they feed upon. Instead these vampires came off as elitist and aloof. That’s part of the point but instead of actually dealing with the zombie issue in the first issue, they more go on a safari, which was a bit odd to me.

Overall, the story was just ok. I have high expectations for brooks, especially when he takes on the subject of zombies. He’s shown a mastery of the subject, but also a new way of telling stories about them. This comic doesn’t have that. There’s a different voice in that there’s little dialogue between characters, but that makes me wish he played with the storytelling elements even more so.

If you’re a fan of vampires or zombies it might be worth checking out the series, but overall for me, it’s pretty average.

Story: Max Brooks Art: Rauolo Caceres
Story: 6.75 Art: 6.75 Overall: 6.75 Recommendation: Read