The Dead, Kingdom of Flies - Berserker Comics

Zombie-z-z-z-z-z-z...

I really wanted to like this book. I really did. Alan Grant and Simon Bisley working together again, how could this title go wrong? Three issues later, I'm just stunned how dreadful this comic book is turning out to be. First off, I've always enjoyed Alan's ability to take a tired old storyline and breathe new life into it. (Alan is usually so good with the twist.) I've always enjoyed his ability to take the tried and true and turn it into something twisted and new.

Sadly, this book is offering nothing new or twisted at all. The storyline is as generic as any zombie tale is capable of being and Alan's storyline offers nothing new to the genre whatsoever. I mean its got zombies-but I've been there and done that-its got a group of people isolated in a building who seem far more interested in fighting each other than they are in battling the plague around them, but again, I've been there and done that. You shoot the zombies in the head to stop them. Scratches and bites infect healthy flesh and create new zombies. Okay, I've seen this tale a gazillion times of late and this book is just a rerun of a worn out theme at four dollars per issue. I can take the same four dollars and buy another zombie movie at, Blockbuster-and the pace of the action will be much faster and scarier.

Bisley's artwork is disjointed and uninspired at best. You can just sense how uncommitted he is to the project and it feels as if he's doing the book for no other purpose than busy work. I'm used to finding a visual commentary in Bisley's illustrations and so far he just hasn't seemed to find the visual hook yet that makes the work enjoyable for him. Aside from a penis drawn provocatively close to Jesus and a naked shower scene there just isn't the running gag running through the book that marks it as a Bisley work. (To me Simon has always been a social commentary artist. His artwork usually says more in background illustrations than most writers get out of their primary story words.) The potential is there, but so far the spark hasn't caught and this book is more smoke than fire and it bothers the eyes instead of lighting them up.

I still want to like this book. Its Alan Grant and Simon Bisley for God's sake! One more issue... I'll give this book one more issue and something really cool better happen or its going into the dead pile. And trust me, once a book goes into my dead pile it doesn't get up and walk again.

Sorry, but right now I'm bored of the flies.