PESTILENCE BOOK ONE review

(Reviewed by Melody Werner)

Pestilence is a 2017-current series published by AfterShock Comics. Written by Frank Tieri, illustrated by Oleg Okunev, with covers by the legendary Tim Bradstreet. It's a fantasy disaster series where the Bubonic Plague was actually zombies, and a troop of knights must find out the cause of the outbreak and try to survive. Pretty inventive, and thankfully, the series does that potential justice.

I think a lot of people will be drawn into this series because of Bradstreet's of course extraordinary covers, but I wouldn't downplay Okunev's art. It's not the greatest imo, but it is great in its own right nevertheless. It's suitably grungy, and fits the tone of the series quite well. While most of the character designs are fairly rudimentary, there are some zombies who are absolutely horrific. Interesting designs, I could see them being considered "nightmare fuel" for some. The color-work by Rob Schwager is quite solid, and the general presentation quality is electric--in part thanks to excellent lettering by the ever classy Marshall Dillon--as to be expected from an AferShock production.

The narrative of Pestilence pivots between being enjoyable pulpy fun and predictable zombie post-apocalypse. It is consistently compelling, but by no means underivative. As someone who doesn't take too fondly to disaster stories often, I do think that this series carries some tropes a bit too much and suffers for it. The biggest problem is that the characters are wafer thin. I liked one because he was a fat, jovial bastard, but the rest had nothing really to them. The main character is just "gruff man McGee." I'd love to see a disaster comic with complex characters for once. The deaths don't really work because the characters aren't built up enough. But the series is well paced enough that any bumps with regard to characters are smoothed over enough, because the series wastes no time getting to the good stuff. The most important things to me when it comes to the disaster genre generally are tied intrinsically together: world and scope. Pestilence excels at both. It delivers an interesting and enjoyable spin on zombies and doesn't just feel like "The Walking Dead with Crusaders." The dialogue is tight enough.

Pestilence's first arc is enjoyable enough to where I anticipate reading the next arc once it finishes, which begins next month or so (at time of writing), and would recommend it to anyone interested. Pestilence starts things off on the right foot this year. It gets an 8.5/10.

Great

Summary:
A visually stunning fantasy zombie title with a solid plot, bland characters, smooth pacing, strong dialogue, and a cool world. An enjoyable read.

(originally posted: 1/22/2018)