Welcome to Longbox Junk, where I write comic reviews that nobody asked for!
October is winding down. . .only a couple more weeks to go. But there's still some Halloween fun to be had here at Longbox Junk!
It's been a pretty fun Halloween party so far. We've had ghosts, werewolves, hostile aliens, demons, a mad scientist. . .not bad. Not bad at all. But it just feels like SOMETHING is missing.
Zombies.
The wandering undead corpses, risen from the grave to feast upon the living. Zombies! Let's invite some zombies to the Longbox Junk Halloween party, shall we? WE SHALL!The comic at hand is an official adaptation of THE iconic zombie movie, George Romero's 1968 horror classic, Night of the Living Dead. I JUST picked this one up from a thrift shop last weekend and haven't had the time to read it until literally right now as I type these words, so I have no idea what I'm getting into here. You can find out with me!
Let's GOOO!
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD #1
FantaCo (1991)
COVER: Carlos Kastro
THE COVER:
As soon as I spotted this cover in a battered longbox of comics at a local thrift/antique store, I HAD to have it! I mean. . .just LOOK at it! If THAT'S not an awesome Halloween cover, I don't know what is.
Even if the story isn't good, I'm so glad I found this comic just for the cover alone. It's superb.
Let's get inside!
THE STORY:
Night of the Living Dead Chapter One
SCRIPT: Tom Skulan, Eric Stanway, George Romero (Original Screenplay), John Russo (Original Screenplay)
PENCILS: Carlos Kastro, Eric Meheu
INKS: Carlos Kastro, Eric Meheu
Brother and Sister Johnny and Barbra drive to a remote cemetery in rural Pennsylvania to visit their Father's grave. Johnny isn't happy with the idea of continuing the long drives into the country every year, as they've done since their Father's death, and the two of them argue as they travel. . .
Finally arriving at the gravesite, the two siblings pay their respects, but Johnny doesn't really have much respect about it. He taunts Barbra as she prays over their father's grave, upsetting Barbra as he tries to scare her. . .
Johnny's disrespectful graveyard antics are interrupted when a pale man wearing a tattered suit slowly strolls up and attacks Barbra! Johnny tries to fight the attacker, but gets his head smashed against a tombstone for his trouble. . .
With Johnny dead, the man turns his attention back to Barbra, who runs back to the car with the mysterious man in hot pursuit. . .well, sort of a slowly jogging pursuit, but anyway. She discovers that Johnny still has the keys to the car. While she frantically tries to figure out what to do, the man arrives and starts trying to bash the car's windows with a brick!
Barbra releases the emergency brake and she starts making a slowly-rolling getaway. But the man still follows. In her panic, Barbra crashes the car into a tree and she's forced to make a run for it!
Terrified, Barbra spots a nearby farmhouse and runs inside. Heading to the kitchen, she finds a butcher knife. Peering out the window, she discovers to her horror that not only is the man outside and trying to find a way into the house, but that there are two more figures shambling out of the woods to join him!
She tries the phone, but it's not working. She decides to hide upstairs, but on the way she discovers the corpse of a woman. . .her face frozen in a scream, the flesh chewed from her skull! Barbra completely loses it over the gruesome sight and she runs back out the front door of the farmhouse!
Outside, she's stunned by the glare of headlights. There's a car pulling up to the house!
A man gets out of the car, he's holding a tire iron. He sees Barbra, then sees the figures approaching. Thinking quickly, he rushes her back into the house and bolts the front door. . .
The Stranger (Ben) mistakes Barbra for the owner of the farmhouse and demands the key to the gas pump he spotted outside. He tells her that they can escape if he can get some gas for his car. Ben tries the phone and discovers it's dead. Barbra doesn't speak, she just stares in shock. . .
Ben figures out that Barbra is hiding just like him. He frantically tells her that they've got to get away and find some other people. He starts searching the house for anything useful. In the meantime, Barbra just sort of stumbles around in shock. Everywhere she looks, she sees blood! She starts screaming in panic. . .overwhelmed by everything going on.
Ben hears smashing sounds outside and realizes their pursuers are destroying his car. Barbra falls into a state of catatonic shock as Ben runs outside to try to stop them from damaging their way out.
Outside, a brutal battle ensues as Ben takes the crowbar to the two attackers outside. He's quickly forced to fight for his life as he realizes they're a lot stronger than he thought! But eventually, he beats them both down. . .
Exhausted, Ben goes back into the farmhouse, only to find another attacker about to grab the nearly-catatonic Barbra! He manages to kill the attacker with his tire iron, stabbing it through the forehead, but to Ben's horror, he sees more coming! A lot more!
Ben desperately tries to fight off the attackers as they come into the farmhouse, and he manages to take a few of them down, but there's too many!
Ben slams the door shut and begins trying to barricade it. Terrified, Barbra wants to know what's going on. Ben tells her that they know they're in there! Outside, a crowd of zombies begins completely surrounding the farmhouse. . .
To be continued. . .
THE REVIEW:
Okay, okay. . .not bad. Let's break it on down!
So what we have here is pretty much a scene by scene re-telling of the original 1968 movie, with very little added beyond a bit more lingering on some of the gore. The dialogue and action is almost the same as well, with just a few different "camera" angles on scenes here and there.
This first issue covers roughly the first twenty minutes of the movie (I actually put my DVD on and watched it as I read this comic, to see how closely they matched). It cuts off right before Ben and Barbra discover there are more people hiding in the basement.
So. . .as an official adaptation based on the original screenplay, this comic does a great job. Maybe it does TOO good of a job. It doesn't step outside the lines very much, so if you're a fan of the movie version of Night of the Living Dead (like I am), there's not much new here to see.
Like the adaptation of Re-Animator I reviewed a couple of posts back, you might get more out of this if you aren't overly-familiar with the source material. If you're coming at this with fresh eyes, you'll get a tense and nightmarish quickly-paced story that's extremely tight and well done. And you'll get the same thing if you ARE a fan of the movie, just not so much.
Where this adaptation DOES kick it up a notch is with the art!
The movie is crisp and clean. Showing every detail. Like the script, the movie is extremely tight and well-done. It's a classic for a reason. The art in this adaptation is blurry, twisted, and nightmarish. It has a frantic energy about it that the almost sterile perfection of the camera work in the movie lacks. The art REALLY stands out when contrasted to the familiar scenes and dialogue.
CONCLUSION
Overall, this is a stellar re-telling of George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead. For fans of the movie, it will seem familiar. . .the dialogue and scenes are almost note for note. But the art gives this adaptation a nightmarish flavor that I REALLY liked a lot.
This is only the first issue of a four issue series, and I really wish I had the other three issues. I'd never heard of this adaptation or seen it in bargain bins or back issue bins, so I did a little research and found out that there ARE plenty of copies for sale online for less than ten bucks, so they're out there.
It looks like all four issues have been collected several times and are also for sale online. I usually don't buy comics online, but I'm definitely considering buying one of the collected editions of this series.
All in all, this was a great read. Check it out, if you can get your hands on it!
Up Next. . .
I don't hear no bell! It ain't over yet!
MORE Halloween fun! Be there or be square.
