The Last Zombie - Review

Title:	The Last Zombie
Contributors:	Brian Keene Joseph Wight
Publisher:	Antarctic Press
Issue #:	1
Year:	2010
Pages:	32 Pages
Age Rating:	18 (Language, Violence, Gore)
Story Grade:	A
Art Grade:	A

This is not your typical zombie book. After a brief introduction to a world overrun by zombies, the story jumps a couple of years in time where the zombies are mostly gone, but the disease that causes them remains, so humans can still become zombies, but you just don't see zombie hordes like you would in an initial outbreak. Therefore, the real danger remaining in the world, and arguably the scariest aspect of any type of apocalypse, is the surviving human population desperate to continue their survival. Little pockets of survivors willing to do anything to survive.

As one lone outpost in New York loses communication with the remaining outposts that are spread across the country a small band of soldiers lead one scientist on a quest from Colorado to try and reunite him with his love while trying to figure out what went wrong in New York.

This is a compelling story about people surrounded by a horrific environment which makes for a great book to read. It is really easy for a writer to throw a person into a bunch cool and interesting monsters and make for a great slaughterfest. It is much more difficult for writer to make a person interesting without the monsters and make us care about them in a dangerous place. Brian Keene does great job of making you want more after you finish consuming the last panel of this book.

The artwork is stellar, done in all black and white, which lends a little George Romero flavor to the art, and it remains solid and gritty throughout, with a definitive moody tone to it.

Joseph Wight has done a great job shifting the mood of the book from that a monster book to that of a human interest piece with his art.

All in all, I graded this book a solid A. This isn't your standard zombie pulp horror slaughter story. This is right in line with the quality of human interest writing that drew me into The Walking Dead. Well worth a look and at fraction of the cost of Walking Dead's earlier issues.

Until next time... sweet dreams are made of these.