Review by Douglas Noble on www.bugpowder.com in 2008.
Let’s see if I can’t get to the end of this review without making a horrible zombie related pun, shall we? The sixth themed Accent UK anthology takes the increasing popular horror subgenre of zombie stories as it’s subject for a solidly packed volume. I count 41 items on the contents page, and with that amount of stories, almost everyone should be able to find something to their tastes.The trouble with zombies, or at least zombies in the popular consciousness since Night of the Living Dead, is that there is nothing intrinsically interesting about them. They are slow and relentless, yes, but they are also without personality or motive, being little more than brain-eating machines. This means that to create an interesting story using zombies the creators have to have that be about something other than the zombies. It’s just not enough to shout “Zombies!” in a loud voice an expect everyone to cheer, though there does seem to be an element that do think that it’s enough to do just that.
In something of a coup for Accent UK, Steve Bissette provides the gloriously ugly cover for the book, which reminds you how much his particular brand of grue has been missing from comics for that last few years. Hopefully this will be the first of many new things from his pen, as he also does the art inside for a rhyming alphabet of zombies from a script by his son, Daniel. It’s not quite Edward Gorey, but it is fun.
Co-Editor Dave West abuses his privileges as captain of this particular ship to submit a story guaranteed inclusion, The Slow Undeath. Luckily, it also happens to be the best thing in the book, and the only story to entire eschew the trappings of the genre. West approaches the idea of the zombie through a group of workers, following their gradual dissatisfaction as the years pass. This is done with an almost clinical eye, as West frames each passing year with an identical page layout, the final panel of which shows the workers dropping slowly back into the main group walking towards their offices. These remain the most chilling images in the book, and stay with the reader for a long while after.
The team of Kieron Gillen and Andy Bloor (or should that be Gillen Bloor?) provide a nasty little chuckle with their story of a man forced to survive amongst zombies by acting like them. It’s a story that cuts a bit deeper than most of the others in the anthology, bringing to mind similar scenes in Phillip Kaufman’s 197X remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Everyone can relate to the idea of trying to fit in, after all, and this pushes the idea to a hideous conclusion. Bloor’s art here is especially effective – the flow of his figure work has lost that stiffness that mars much of The Wolfmen, and it’s all the better for it. The deep shadows here recall not often point of comparison Charles Burns, whose art is ultimately cold and locked off from the reader, but rather EC artist Graham Ingels. Bloor has been getting steadily better over the last two years, and is one to watch.
The writing team of Leah Moore and John Reppion reprise their teaming with David Hitchcock for a tale set in Victorian Cornwall. The art here is beautiful, full of glowering atmosphere, but it shares the problems that the same team had in earlier anthologies – this doesn’t feel like a whole story, merely the opening of a longer tale. The bit that we do have is very nice indeed, though, and is definitely worth a look.
Other stories of note include Davie Baillie’s series of one page Zombie Interviews, which pop up at various intervals throughout the book. They’re pretty funny for the most part, and Baillie’s art has improved dramatically since his Tongue of the Dead mini. However, repetition dulls the impact of the joke, and there’s at least one too many of these pages in the book.
The last story that I want to single out is Zombie of the Great Unwashed by Jason Cobley and Paul Harrison-Davies. This is a bright and cheerful look at the social aspects of being a zombie, as a friend of one of the dead tries to help him get benefits and employment. It’s good fun, but the reader can tell that there’s a brain ticking behind the story, as the rigmarole that the system forces the zombie to go through is portrayed as more frightening as the zombie himself.
There are dozens of other entries in the book, which weighs in at a whopping 168 pages, which range from slight to intense, with art to match. Most anthologies have their share of misfires, and this is no exception. There are a few things that I could barely finish, to be honest, and which refuse to rise out of the conventions of the genre. Here’s a hint – if your story is featured in an anthology called Zombies, then the shock revelation of a zombie really isn’t going to surprise anyone. Any anthology with just a specific theme is going to suffer from this to an extent, and so it is with this one, though there are a number of excellent stories contained within its pages that make the anthology worth a second look. Those pages could do with being numbered though.
Overall, this is a slick, great looking book, further establishing Accent UK as an important nexus for talent within British comics. The production and printing are all exemplary and the mix of stories, while lacking a little in breadth, showcases an interesting variety of styles. As with the last volume, this represents good value for money, and a great venue for some of the rising stars of the small press. In many ways this fulfils the promise of the previous Accent UK books, and as such, I look forward the next.
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