Advance Review — ‘Everything Dead And Dying’ #2 Finds Humanity Amidst Horror
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
The best horror and science fiction stories are usually allegories of the human condition. In only two issues, this limited series has already raised the bar on the exploration of our struggles as humans against the setting of a zombie apocalypse.
Overall
9.5/10If zombie stories have taught us anything over the past several decades, it’s that the real threat is not the undead but rather the human survivors. The Walking Dead alone proved that in nearly every issue and television episode.
That is also the case as Image Comics’ Everything Dead and Dying progresses into its second issue. But most of the similarities end there between this stellar limited series and those that have come before it.
After all, Jack Chandler is the lone living human in his village that is infested with the undead. But instead of fighting the zombie infestation, he embraces it – sometimes literally. Jack keeps his husband, daughter, and everyone else he knows alive by feeding them ground animal parts and the walkers go about their would-be lives in a sort of Groundhog Day trance. That is, until a group of human survivors discover the town and screw everything up.
But, as we see in flashbacks, the discord in Jack’s household started well before the zombie apocalypse. In Tate Brombal’s layered script, we learn that Jack is not the model husband and father that we were led to believe in the premiere issue. We can all relate to Jack wanting to hold his family together as the world is falling apart. But Brombal fleshes out a very human Jack who primary drivers may include guilt as much as anything.
Artist Jacob Phillips again effortlessly transports us from the past to the present and back again seamlessly. Such back and forth could easily be confusing, but Phillips – as well as colorist Pip Martin – make those transitions easy to understand. Phillips returns to certain panels again and again, underscoring their importance and adding a visual punch to some of the most emotional part of the issue.
The best zombie stories give us insights into the human condition that other horror tales only deal with peripherally. This creative team has managed to tell the most human of stories in the most unhuman setting.
Everything Dead and Dying #2 will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms on Wednesday from Image Comics.
