Customer Reviews

Complete Zombies Vs. Robots

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One evening, I was stumbling around the interweb and came across Australian artist Ashely Wood's website. His paintings and pen and ink work drew me in right away, with their distinctive treatment of nerd/cool stuff like, well, zombies and robots. Like a lot of my friends, I'm generally fans of both (although not to the extent of getting them tattooed on myself, like some people I know...) -- so the concept of the two facing off in a battle for world domination seemed well worth picking up.

I'm not clear what configuration the original series appeared in, but this edition starts with a three part backstory addressing "Which Came First?" -- the zombies or the robots. The gist of it is that some U.S. government scientists built a kind of time-travel/alternate dimension portal, the use of which resulted in a zombie virus coming back to infect earth. Then comes the two-part Zombies vs. Robots storyline. As the global population is wiped out, the robots find the one uninfected baby and aim to clone it to resurrect their human masters (shades of Y: The Last Man). Alas, the hive intelligence of the zombies has detected the last fresh brain on earth, and it's a battle royale as they seek to break through the robot army to get to it. It's a simple story, but well told, with a good dose of deadpan robot humor. This ends with the last remaining robot "rebooting" the world by launching a nuclear armageddon to wipe out all zombie life. Except that there's this one island of uninfected Amazons... Which introduces the three part Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons. Things get zanier and zanier, what with the Amazon orgies, kung fu, beheadings, and the undead minotaur and all... Good times.

The artwork is very loose and expressive, sometimes almost too much so. Traditional sequential framing is generally absent, or only hinted at, as Wood lets loose on the page. He shifts between ink, watercolor washes, tints, ragged zip-a-tones, and even acrylics from scene to scene, and sometimes within. His zombies are lanky, bestial creatures with nary a remnant of their humanity; his robots are blocky dudes with attitude, and his Amazons are lithe, long-limbed, scantily-clad eye candy. It's geek culture meets fine art -- and for anyone who spent their formative years watching bad '70s and '80s horror and sci-fi flicks, it will strike a chord.

Note: The cover of my edition is different from that on the Amazon page.

I am pretty new to comics, but when I saw the artwork in this book I had to check it out. The was a really quick read, I read it in a couple of hours with interruptions. The writing, I would say, isn't too in depth, but it is a story about mindless zombies and mindless robots fighting each other. There was a chance to build more story when the Amazons were introduced, but there still wasn't much to them either. With all that being said, the artwork is what what makes this book great. It was just a fun read. I would suggest that anyone pick it up if you like dirty gritty artwork in comics.

While I had a great time reading this, I feel that the average comic book reader may not appreciate the somewhat non-linear story telling and rough sketch-y art form that have become synonymous with Ashley Wood's works. If you are familiar with his work you probably know what I mean. I believe a good primer for people interested in his work is probably World War Robot.

Story is a bit soft, some naked chic having an orgy, kinda hot, other than that cool story but VERY compact. did i mention the artwork is STELLAR!!!!!!!!

Yes, when Amazon sent me an email inviting me to review this recent purchase, I jumped at the chance. Because I would hate for people to mistakenly think this is a good book.

A graphic novel is both writing and pictures, so here's both:

Writing: The only ones with less personality than the zombies are the robots. And I don't mean a clever 50's style simple robot, or a modern take on realistic artificial intelligence. I just mean they have stupid dialogue. At one point the robots get a computer virus from zombie blood. If you think that kind of thing is clever, this book is probably for you. Also, you're probably already a zombie.

Art: You know those artist types who are so full of themselves that they want to abandon conventional art in an attempt to transcend boundaries, but instead just end up making a bunch of marks on a page so that no one can tell what is actually happening in the painting? This is one. Good luck telling who is eating whose brains.

So not the worst thing I've ever read, but don't buy it.