4 out of 5

‘Charming’ to describe a comic about disposing of the dead?  Sure.  It takes Waid’s many-years trained hand to know how to write such an ensured one-shot, but an artist whose work has mostly been focused around zombies – Jeremy Rock – is responsible for bringing it to life in the format, and giving the main character enough relatability that the conclusion matters.

Basically: post-zombie world, seemingly few humans left, and one ‘camp’ of less than 20 has realized that it keeps things cleaner to not just burn the zombies where they fall, but to instead cart them to dumping locations for the same.  Our narrator is one of those dumpers, and so is Luther, who we’re told/shown likes to rifle through the bodies for their wallets and trinkets.  Luther is portrayed as simple-minded, but Waid lets us know that he still has his sense and his pride.  And things aren’t 100% safe – zombs are still out and about, and some of those dead bodies have a knack of not exactly being dead.

The eventual direction of the story isn’t too surprising, but the balance of grim zombie-world reality and sentimentality Waid gives it seems born of his experience writing on both sides of the sour/sweet fence.  The extra character details we get (not about Luther) are somewhat distracting, especially regarding a now son-less couple, but it’s accepted as world-building and as a tactic to delay/distract from the somewhat inevitable.  Rock’s art is sort of a more formal Charlie Adlard, which is fitting since he comes from the Walking Dead camp, but the detailing and backgrounds is above and beyond – there’s something slightly twisted about his shading and perspective that’s oddly Corben-esque.  The paneling is pretty straight-forward, and avoids some of the bells and whistles the Thrillbent stuff can overuse, but still does some of the “and now here’s a page where I only replace 1/5th of it” that’s sometimes more confusing than necessary, but I appreciate the attempt to give us something fresh for the format.

And it’s free.

And I talk a lot.