A review by robk
Max Brooks' the Extinction Parade Volume 1 by Max Brooks
4.0
[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book as part of a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.]
What a delicious seasoning is chaos
I was very pleasantly surprised by this graphic novel. My first impressions upon flipping through its pages were low, but that's because I didn't (and still don't) care for Raulo Caceres' artwork. It is far too titillating and gory for my (perhaps prudish?) sensibilities, and this graphic novel contains some, well, graphic artwork. Perhaps it is foolish for me to complain about a zombie novel's gory content. After all, zombies need to consume human brains, and they harvest those brains by brute force, so... yeah. It's gory, bloody, nasty stuff. Nevertheless, I didn't care for the style in which this goriness was portrayed. And frankly, the sophomoric and clearly sexist representation of female bodies in the artwork offended me far more than the carnage, but comic book art has a long history of objectifying women. Not that that makes it ok. It doesn't.
However, there's more to this novel than semi-erotic zombie gore. There's also sexy vampire gore. Yes, Brooks' imagination takes the hedonistic world of vampires and throws it right into the middle of a world-wide zombie apocalypse. Despite their immortality, the Vampires in Brooks' comics live only for the moment and watch in delight as the zombie plague virtually annihilates the human race. The vampires don't take any action to stop the flood of zombies until one Kierkegaard-quoting vampire proclaims the impending extinction of, not only humanity, but the vampires that feed on the poor humans.
This is where the story gets good, but, unfortunately, this is also where the story ends. At least for now. Max Brooks' The Extinction Parade, Volume 1 functions almost exclusively as exposition to what should be an exciting plot in the volumes to come.
What a delicious seasoning is chaos
I was very pleasantly surprised by this graphic novel. My first impressions upon flipping through its pages were low, but that's because I didn't (and still don't) care for Raulo Caceres' artwork. It is far too titillating and gory for my (perhaps prudish?) sensibilities, and this graphic novel contains some, well, graphic artwork. Perhaps it is foolish for me to complain about a zombie novel's gory content. After all, zombies need to consume human brains, and they harvest those brains by brute force, so... yeah. It's gory, bloody, nasty stuff. Nevertheless, I didn't care for the style in which this goriness was portrayed. And frankly, the sophomoric and clearly sexist representation of female bodies in the artwork offended me far more than the carnage, but comic book art has a long history of objectifying women. Not that that makes it ok. It doesn't.
However, there's more to this novel than semi-erotic zombie gore. There's also sexy vampire gore. Yes, Brooks' imagination takes the hedonistic world of vampires and throws it right into the middle of a world-wide zombie apocalypse. Despite their immortality, the Vampires in Brooks' comics live only for the moment and watch in delight as the zombie plague virtually annihilates the human race. The vampires don't take any action to stop the flood of zombies until one Kierkegaard-quoting vampire proclaims the impending extinction of, not only humanity, but the vampires that feed on the poor humans.
This is where the story gets good, but, unfortunately, this is also where the story ends. At least for now. Max Brooks' The Extinction Parade, Volume 1 functions almost exclusively as exposition to what should be an exciting plot in the volumes to come.