Everything Dead and Dying #5 // Review
Once upon a time there was a farmer. And he was a good farmer. It was all he knew after all. But life went on. And the farmer lived more and more. He learned about loss. He learned about family. He learned about love. He lived a very long life. And there were zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. His story comes to a wistfully moody end in Everything Dead and Dying #5. Writer Tate Brombal and artist Jacob Phillips draw their horror drama to a close with colorist Pip Martin. Brombal and company settle into an appealingly restful mood as the series reaches its conclusion.
There are gunshots and splatters of blood. And memories. Jack Chandler is trying to live with the remains of the dead. There are those who aren’t ready to allow him to do that. They will have to deal with the consequences of their actions. Chandler will have to live with the consequences of his own actions. It’s only a matter of time. Sometimes fate needs a little bit of a catalyst, though. Chandler knows that things are going to be coming to an end. Somewhere in the midst of it all, his daughter is going to return. Then he’ll be ready...
What's often overlooked in post apocalyptic fiction is the heart at the center of it all. As horrifying, as it is to see things really fall apart, there's a kind of triumph from the fact that any of it manages to survive at all on the edge of total annihilation. Brombal find the emotional heart amidst the darkness. Solidly censoring the narrative on the emotions at the heart of it all allows the author to explore things in a way that they don't often get explored. There’s real insight in what Brombal is writing.
Phillips and Martin are cleverly imprecise with what they're bringing to the page. There's a an engaging squallor about it all that feels like it's finding the exact same center that the script is. Martin's colors add a depth that is absolutely essential to the visual world of what's going on. The smears of blood don't hurt either. The script may have benefited a bit more from a kind of precision with wine and formed that the art team isn't going for. Their decision to bring a sketchy emotional imprecision to the page serves the overall narrative quite well. It feels right even if it doesn't feel like it's living up to its potential.
Though they haven’t been attempted very often, tender zombie stories have been around for a while. Brombal and company manage something unique in the strangely specific sub-sub-genre of emotionally-driven zombie ensemble dramas. There's a lot to be said about survival that continues to be explored in various post apocalyptic stories. With Everything Dead and Dying, Brombal and company add an understanding to that theme of survival that expands on it quite a bit. The fact of the matter is that death is as natural as it is inevitable. Accepting that in a world of zombies means accepting it on a very powerful and ridiculously exaggerated level that gets to the heart of human emotion.
