Yes, I know that today was supposed to be ‘Best Served Cold Review Day’ but... but... The bottom line is that superb as it is (and believe me it is superb) ‘Best Served Cold’ does not make for good ‘hang over reading’ and I was hung over for a large part of the weekend... I’m a large chunk of the way through (maybe a couple of hundred pages left) though and the plan is to have a review posted as soon as possible. In the meantime, just take it from me that ‘Best Served Cold’ is a very good read. If you’re a fan of Joe Abercrombie’s books then you’ve got a treat in store for you...
This is all well and good but what do you get in the meantime? Well, I spent the weekend with my mates (from the SFX Forum) and such a weekend always entails trips to comic shops. Here’s a little look at what I picked up and it’s all good...
‘The Goon: Virtue and the Grim Consequences Thereof’ – Eric Powell
If it wasn’t for the consistently excellent ‘The Walking Dead’ then ‘The Goon’ would be my favourite comic book series by a long way. As it is, ‘The Goon’ still does more than enough to give me a regular fix of hilarious ‘gangster horror’. Franky doesn’t get to use his ‘Knife to the eye!’ signature move in ‘Virtue’ but there is more than enough going on to mean that this isn’t such a big loss. What we do get is the Goon’s brief period as an American football player and the resulting tragic bloodbath that erupts. I liked the way that this answers the question of where the Zombie Priest got all his men from... We are also asked to ponder the question of whether virtue is its own reward if trying to help out a friend lands you in Cade’s Island Penitentary. And what a prison this place is! Don’t mess with the bulls or you’ll be going in the hole... We also get to meet Willie Nagel, a zombie who doesn’t want to get caught up in the rackets and just wants to make an honest life for himself. It’s a shame for him then that he’s trying to do all this on the Goon’s turf...
‘Virtue and the Grim Consequences Thereof’ is another fun read (although I wasn’t too sure about the ‘Christmas Carol’ story...), I feel another ‘Goon’ comic buying expedition coming on very soon!
‘Zombie’ – Kyle Hotz
Cash stolen from the botched bank job: $125,000
Two loaded shotguns keeping the hostages quiet: $675.00
A half tank of gas in the getaway car: $27.50
Smashing through a police roadblock and fighting for your life against hundreds of flesh eating zombies: Priceless
I’ve been trying to finish off my ‘Zombie’ collection (was missing one comic) for a while now and this weekend I decided to just go for it and buy the trade. I’m really glad I did...
The quote (which is the blurb on the back of the book) pretty much sums up the entire story, a heist that goes wrong in the worst way possible. It’s very fast paced and, as a result, more than a little shallow. There isn’t enough time to really get into people’s heads. That’s ok though, at least it was for me, and page after page of flesh tearing zombie action always works always works as far as I’m concerned!
The tension is stretched to breaking point and the stakes get higher and higher. In the spirit of all good zombie fiction we see that no-one really wins when there’s a zombie infestation on your doorstep. ‘Zombie’ has well and truly earned it’s place on my shelf of cool zombie comics...
The Zombies that ate the World’ – Jerry Frissen
A question that I’ve seen asked a couple of times, just recently, is why do zombies feel the need to eat? Not only this but what would it be like living in a world where zombies had returned but were not chowing down on the living...
Jerry Frissen answers the second question with his opening tales of a world where zombies are governed only by learned responses from when they were alive. This can make them more of a nuisance than anything else but these days they have rights and you can’t just put a bullet in their head. Enter Karl and Maggie, the kind of people you call when your zombie father in law insists on climbing in bed while you’re getting intimate with your wife. You see, Karl and Maggie perform illegal cremations (they also dig up zombified film stars for kinky millionaires but that’s another story)...
‘The Zombies that ate the World’ isn’t particularly clear about what it sets out to do but a second read sets that straight. What you get is a comic that gives the zombie mythos a little spin and comes out with something that’s both clever and funny in equal measure. This is first in a series of eight, I’ll be picking the rest up and letting you know what I think...
We wait for books. So we also can wait for reviews ;>)
ReplyDeleteAnyway I look forward to your review of Best Served Cold.