Graphic Novel Review: THE WAKING

Zombie stories have taken over the horror genre in comics from Marvel's "Marvel Zombies" series to "The Walking Dead," which is now a popular television series, the "28 Days Later" ongoing series, to the continuing adventures of Ash against the Deadites in the "Army of Darkness," to name a few. So it is with great pleasure that can say that Raven Gregory's take on the zombie genre in "The Waking" is a breath of fresh air.



Gregory writes and Vic Drujiniu illustrates this dark tale of the dead suddenly returning to life to avenge their deaths of those responsible for their demise. The cases of two teams of detectives are about to collide when they discover that their cases may be more linked than originally thought and at the center of it all is a father of an undead child who refuses to let go. Thing that distinguishes this story from other more recent zombie stories is the fact that these are not mindless zombies killing and eating everything in their paths. Gregory has crafted a world of zombies who simply want to avenge their deaths and then die in peace.



Although Gregory frames the story around two detectives and their cases the story's real heart comes from Jonathan Raine '" father to Madison, now a walking dead whose only goal is to find and kill her own murderer. Because Jonathan doesn't want to lose his daughter again (as the undead soon die after avenging their deaths) he refuses to let her find her killer. Jonathan uses his ability to resurrect the dead to try and get someone else to kill his daughter's murder so that she will remain alive/undead indefinitely but as is the case in a Gregory story things go horribly wrong.



Zenescope Entertainment has always strived for different and darker stories than most other publishers and "The Waking" is no exception. The graphic novel includes a collection of the covers for the individual issues as well as a sneak peek at "Neverland" the company's highly anticipated re-imagining of Peter Pan.