I wanted to give this comic another try. After all, I am not one to give up so easily. To be honest, the comic had so much hype around it, and Kevin freakin’ Eastman is a part of the whole series, so I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. I think I am going to stick with my original thought though and say this comic just isn’t for me. Clearly, the whole zombie thing is already a turn off. I keep thinking that these new zombie books will have some sort of twist that the other zombie books don’t have; I don’t think it is going to happen. There are some positive lights I can shed on this comic though. The very first thing relates to President Obama being in this series. It is weird but sort of hilarious at the same time. I don’t know if the series means for it to be a comic relief, but it totally is. Obama decides to be proactive and go to Louisiana himself. There is a hurricane coming, and he doesn’t want to sit on his ass like the previous administration. He wants to be a first responder. Of course his advisors are completely against this. On top of all of this, Obama and the world now knows of the animal zombie breakout happening in Louisiana as well. Another strong point to make includes this piece. I really like how the world just accepts that there are zombie animals. We don’t go through the whole “oh wow, zombies do exist” story. I appreciate that. It is also nice intriguing that the humans don’t seem to get affected by the animal bits. So I am wondering if the animals can affect each other?
While all this is in present time, we jumped back to the boys who caused it all; Az, Mike, and Jude. First, we see Tommy and Az running from the duck zombies taking over their house. The boys all meet up and try to form some sort of plan. It was obvious, but we do finally hear the boys talk about how their magic is what brought the animals to life or should I say death. Here is where I get a little lost. I honestly am just so uninteresting in what the backstory is here. Maybe it is because zombies are everywhere that it is probably some repeat of something I have already read. Or maybe because the hook isn’t too appealing. The boys are just punks causing trouble and get was coming to them. I don’t know….either way it affects the reading of the story.
Unless you love zombies and heart Obama (which I never thought those two words would be in the same sentence, but that is comics for ya), then I would avoid this read. The animal walking dead edition is just too cheesy for me. I can’t take it seriously and also don’t see any new twist envolving. I am sure some big reveals are coming in the near future, and maybe I will change my attitude. But I still hold strong to the fact that if they comic has twist to bring them to the front right away, so we could have gotten hooked sooner.
Score: 2/5
Writer/Co-Creator: Joshua Ortega Artist: Qing Ping Mui Publisher: IDW Publishing Price: $3.99 Release Date: 10/23/13