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Dave Stewart's Zombie Broadway (and Walk-In)
Time for more comic reviews, I guess.
Look, okay. I liked Dave Stewart's previous Virgin project, Walk-In. It was problematic, but I liked it. But this? This was just bad. And that's a shame, too, because the premise sounded so cool. Plus, you know, zombies.
So anyway, what went wrong:
The artwork is terrible. Just crap. I mean, here is an actual page from the comic:
And amazingly, there were no less than six different colorists working on this thing. Wow.
The characters are paper-thin, and they're all stereotypes and clichés, too. The women are bitchy and catty, and don't really do anything but preen and fight over the men. Except for the heroine Annie, who gets to cry and act depressed because butch manly man Bruce spurns her affections, but then IT'S OKAY because they hook up in the end. Other than Annie, the only other female characters are either utterly unlikeable (Stella) or tolerable but off'd right away (Maude). Stella is so nasty that she actually stands back and laughs when her romantic rival, Maude, is eaten by a zombie. And yet we readers are, I think, kinda sorta supposed to be rooting for Stella. UGH.
The only gay man is a flaming drag queen who's drawn with a hideous wrinkled visage. Because he's GAY but he's OLD and he's UGLY, ha-ha! Also, he calls everyone "sweetie" and "sugarbuns." Ugh.
So "bitch" is A-OK to use multiple times in the dialogue, but "fucking" has to be semi-bowdlerized? (*headdesk*) Look, nobody actually says "sucking liberals." Nobody.
The only character who gets any backstory is the butch army guy, Bruce. And his backstory OF COURSE can be summed up as: Beautiful pregnant wife is tragically killed by zombies. The end. This Tragically Dead Wife is of course an enormous source of angst for our butch army hero throughout the entire book, at least until he decides to hook up with brave and pure-hearted Annie in the end. Oh whoops did I spoil it? Oh well. Like you didn't see that coming.
The cover is... something special. In the actual story, the broadway show ends up with a living lead actress and a zombie lead actor; but I guess that the prospect of drawing sexy dead women was just too good to pass up for the cover artist, so we get the reverse - a living lead actor and two sexy, sexy zombie actresses - on the cover.
So that's Zombie Broadway. I didn't like it. I've already shluffed my copy over into the "crap that Nena has to remember to sell on ebay" pile. And it's a shame, because, like I said, I enjoyed Dave Stewart's other Virgin project, and, you know, I like zombies.
Speaking of which...
Whatever happened to Walk-In?
I understand that the first story arc is concluded. I know that it's customary for there to be a pause between story arcs in ongoing Virgin titles. But seriously, the last issue of Walk-In is dated May 2007. That's almost a year ago! So are we ever going to see any more of this, or what? It's got great art, a fantastic creative premise, cool characters, and a talking bear. It's a damn FUN comic, and mind-bending and wacky too. I really hope that we get to see more issues someday.
Especially because a major plot thread is left loose hanging in terms of [highlight to read spoiler]the original Ian and Astrid. Astrid has been displaced completely by Stella's mind. So is she dead, or did she maybe find her way into an animal mind the way that Edgar did? And what about Ian? He seems to have become a blend of both of his personalities, so maybe he "merged." I dunno. But Astrid, anyway, has been displaced. It's odd that neither Ian nor Stella seems particularly concerned about the moral implications of taking over Astrid's body. Neither do the other Brutes/Tactiles, who are supposed to be opposed to Terrans taking over Earth minds in the first place.
Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't be too worried. There was a seven-month gap between the end of the first Seven Brothers arc and the beginning of the second. Still, Walk-In has surpassed that with its eleven-months-and-ongoing absence. Well, we'll see what happens.
Look, okay. I liked Dave Stewart's previous Virgin project, Walk-In. It was problematic, but I liked it. But this? This was just bad. And that's a shame, too, because the premise sounded so cool. Plus, you know, zombies.
So anyway, what went wrong:
The artwork is terrible. Just crap. I mean, here is an actual page from the comic:
And amazingly, there were no less than six different colorists working on this thing. Wow.
The characters are paper-thin, and they're all stereotypes and clichés, too. The women are bitchy and catty, and don't really do anything but preen and fight over the men. Except for the heroine Annie, who gets to cry and act depressed because butch manly man Bruce spurns her affections, but then IT'S OKAY because they hook up in the end. Other than Annie, the only other female characters are either utterly unlikeable (Stella) or tolerable but off'd right away (Maude). Stella is so nasty that she actually stands back and laughs when her romantic rival, Maude, is eaten by a zombie. And yet we readers are, I think, kinda sorta supposed to be rooting for Stella. UGH.
The only gay man is a flaming drag queen who's drawn with a hideous wrinkled visage. Because he's GAY but he's OLD and he's UGLY, ha-ha! Also, he calls everyone "sweetie" and "sugarbuns." Ugh.
So "bitch" is A-OK to use multiple times in the dialogue, but "fucking" has to be semi-bowdlerized? (*headdesk*) Look, nobody actually says "sucking liberals." Nobody.
The only character who gets any backstory is the butch army guy, Bruce. And his backstory OF COURSE can be summed up as: Beautiful pregnant wife is tragically killed by zombies. The end. This Tragically Dead Wife is of course an enormous source of angst for our butch army hero throughout the entire book, at least until he decides to hook up with brave and pure-hearted Annie in the end. Oh whoops did I spoil it? Oh well. Like you didn't see that coming.
The cover is... something special. In the actual story, the broadway show ends up with a living lead actress and a zombie lead actor; but I guess that the prospect of drawing sexy dead women was just too good to pass up for the cover artist, so we get the reverse - a living lead actor and two sexy, sexy zombie actresses - on the cover.
So that's Zombie Broadway. I didn't like it. I've already shluffed my copy over into the "crap that Nena has to remember to sell on ebay" pile. And it's a shame, because, like I said, I enjoyed Dave Stewart's other Virgin project, and, you know, I like zombies.
Speaking of which...
Whatever happened to Walk-In?
I understand that the first story arc is concluded. I know that it's customary for there to be a pause between story arcs in ongoing Virgin titles. But seriously, the last issue of Walk-In is dated May 2007. That's almost a year ago! So are we ever going to see any more of this, or what? It's got great art, a fantastic creative premise, cool characters, and a talking bear. It's a damn FUN comic, and mind-bending and wacky too. I really hope that we get to see more issues someday.
Especially because a major plot thread is left loose hanging in terms of [highlight to read spoiler]the original Ian and Astrid. Astrid has been displaced completely by Stella's mind. So is she dead, or did she maybe find her way into an animal mind the way that Edgar did? And what about Ian? He seems to have become a blend of both of his personalities, so maybe he "merged." I dunno. But Astrid, anyway, has been displaced. It's odd that neither Ian nor Stella seems particularly concerned about the moral implications of taking over Astrid's body. Neither do the other Brutes/Tactiles, who are supposed to be opposed to Terrans taking over Earth minds in the first place.
Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't be too worried. There was a seven-month gap between the end of the first Seven Brothers arc and the beginning of the second. Still, Walk-In has surpassed that with its eleven-months-and-ongoing absence. Well, we'll see what happens.