The weekly reviews will be up sometime soon. Please bear with me, as my life is crazy busy right now. I am into the last couple of weeks of this semester.
But first, I just wanted to tell you all about this great book that came out last week called Zombies Calling.
The book was written and illustrated by a local Halifax gal named Faith Erin Hicks. I picked one up last week and was totally blown away by how clever and funny this book is. There are a lot of zombie comics out there, but until now there were no distinctly Canadian zombie comics. I don't know how we made it this far without one.So on top of all the excitement of there being a new, young, female Halifax-based comic creator...there is the added excitement that Miss Hicks is really talented and her book totally rocks. As I said, it came out last week in the middle of the craziness that was the Greatest Comic Book Week Ever, and it still totally held its own. I'm not lying here - I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the new Scott Pilgrim book. And if you like the Scott Pilgrim books - or anything that is both funny and clever - you will like Zombies Calling. I guarantee it.
Published by SLG, Zombies Calling is story focused on Joss, a plucky young Zombie movie-loving university student. Like many university students, she's buried in student loan debt and lives in a cluttered apartment with two roommates. One thing that I liked right away about the character is the early reveal that she isn't actually British. Of course, on the printed page, we assume that a character speaking in British slang and wearing a Union Jack shirt is a lazily-constructed British character. Not so! She is actually just obsessed with Britain, and thus has turned herself into a stereotype. Very clever.
The three main characters, Joss, Sonnet and Robyn, are all very likable and funny.And so are the zombies!
I absolutely love the way she draws zombies. The facial expressions are killer.So Joss figures that she can survive this mysterious zombie invasion by following the rules of zombie movies. At several points in the book she has a hard time focusing on the danger at hand because she is so excited by her love of zombies. I particularly enjoyed this scene:
It's a really fun read, and for $9.95 you can't really go wrong.
Faith Erin Hicks is also going to be doing an in-store signing tomorrow at Strange Adventures in Halifax from 2-4pm. You can also check out her website at faitherinhicks.com.
6 comments:
My first thought, was Oh My God, NOT more Zombies! Then I realized that they were CANADIAN Zombies, and that makes it ok.
I'm going to bump up how many copies I order on my reorder next week on the strength of your review.
Have a great signing!
I got the ashcan-type preview of this at the Paradise Comic-con this year in Toronto. Like Sally, it was one of 3 I got that day and I said (to myself, of course)'Oh, no...more Zombies'
But yes, CANADIAN and yes, Scott Pilgrim, and yes, girly-girl artist. And well, I still have this one. The other 2...er, not so much.
It's good. I will buy it.
"Not so! She is actually just obsessed with Britain, and thus has turned herself into a stereotype. Very clever."
....for the writer maybe, who (if they're not actually from Britain) is then absolved of having to create a British character that actually resembles someone from Britain. For the character itself, it just comes across as yet another lazy portrayal of someone from England.
First random word from a random scan I saw was "wanker", and all I could picture was Cock-er-nee taxi drivers with bad Dick Van Dyke style accents.
Then the comic was dead to me, clever stereotype or not.
Dead? Zombies? You can see what I did there.
But seriously, just once I'd like to see a comic that has some reference to England / Britain and *doesn't* immediately stick the character in standard-issue Union Jack costume.
There should be a better promotion of Canadian artists, there are very few good comics out there from Canada, but am sure it is for a lack of promotion
Just another zombie comic for teenagers! at least it have quality content!
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