A Review of Dead Kingdom #1
Dead Kingdom #1
Etienne Derepentigny words and art
Jerome Gagnon letters
From Red 5 Comics
Do you occasionally wish you could shed the monotony of your daily responsibilities and replace it with an endless hunger and inability to remain dead? Boyo, have I got a comic for you. Peep the solicit:
A mysterious plague is haunting the kingdom. With the help of a peacekeeper, a group of soldiers investigate a village that may hold the answers to what is happening, but the truth is far worse than everyone could ever imagine. Dead Kingdom is a five-part, multi-layered saga that will explore a world where sorcery, brotherhood, and love collide with the rising nightmare of the living dead.
Look, I know zombies are a lot of peoples’ jams. Like brains, they’ll just eat any undead narrative that falls in front of them. Everyone is always chasing that undead high that began when they got their first hit off The Walking Dead.
I am not one of them. I’m not salivating at every new zombie release. I’m picky. I need more in my undead narratives. I need to sink my teeth into rejuvenated flesh that stands out from the rest, and Dead Kingdom is the exact fleshy mouthfeel my craving jowls desire.
It’s like Nottingham meets the Walking Dead in a back alley behind some tavern. It’s swashbuckling mixed with dark magic and lots of well-constructed gore. Faces get peeled off in-panel, and I’m living for it. Hungry for it? Dying for it? I’m really excited about it, basically.
Etienne Derepentigny is a talent of talents. The art and colors work just as wonderfully as the story. Dialog and exposition are solid, and there’s a wonderful balance at play. We get to know the characters enough in smartly-dispersed scenes, and those small doses of humanity make us root for a character’s survival.
In particular, I’m excited to get to know more about Kain and his witch-lady girlfriend. I like their relationship, and I really like how they both know that there are bigger things going on in the narrative, things that are larger in scope than their love for eachother and need to survive. Kain can’t just run away with a sexy redhead even though he wants to. Hell, we all want to. I guess you can take the hero from the military but can’t take the hero from the man. Derepentigny does a great job with these characters, giving them agency and purpose as they tower above the cowardly society they’ve sworn to protect.
I love the art. It’s gruesome as all get-out. The feasting scenes will twist your guts into knots. Blood drips from the pages soaking the reader’s hands in sin as we quickly flip through Dead Kingdom’s pages thirsty for shock and slaughter.
The letters look spectacular too, but I wouldn’t expect any less from lettering monster Jerome Gagnon. He’s very good at keeping the massacre centered and fully realized within every panel. This creative team has no desire to block out any of the violence, which is wonderful because Dead Kingdom’s brutality is one of its shining points.
This is a great spooky season read. Snag it when you’re out comic shopping today, and keep an eye out for the second issue because it’ll be dropping this month as well.
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