AN ART-HOUSE TAKE ON THE CLASSIC ZOMBIE GENRE
You wake up in the rubble and see a ragged, desperate one-armed man greeting you. He takes you underground to a safe space, feeds you, offers you a place to sleep. And then announces that he’ll take the first watch. It’s not long before the peril of the jagged landscape has located you and your newfound protector and is scratching at the door. What transpires is a moment-to-moment struggle for survival—The Road meets Dawn of the Dead. Daybreak is seen through the eyes of a silent observer as he follows his protector and runs from the shadows of the imminent zombie threat. Brian Ralph slowly builds the tension of the zombies on the periphery, letting the threat—rather than the actual carnage—be the driving force. The postapocalyptic backdrop features tangles of rocks, lumber, I beams, and overturned cars that are characters in and of themselves.
Ralph’s stunning debut was the wordless graphic novel Cave-In, created while he was one of the founding members of the influential Fort Thunder art collective. Drawing inspiration from zombies, horror movies, television, and first-person shooter video games, Daybreak departs from zombie genre in both content and format, achieving a living-dead masterwork of literary proportions.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Brian Ralph’s comics present more than meets the eye, but they’re eye candy, too, and work well as fantasy stories that cover a specific landscape over a period of time roughly equivalent to the experience of seeing how they unfold. I find them immensely pleasurable." —TOM SPURGEON, Comics Reporter
"Brian Ralph’s adventure stories combine the hand-crafted charm of indie comics with the well-thought-out thrills of good pulp. A-" —The Onion, The A.V. Club
"Brian Ralph’s adventure stories combine the hand-crafted charm of indie comics with the well-thought-out thrills of good pulp. A-" —The Onion, The A.V. Club
About the Author
BRIAN RALPH is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and is currently a professor of sequential art at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Aud
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Daybreak is a comic that uses the medium in a new, interesting way- and the end result is a story that is finely tuned with emotion. As mentioned on the back cover, the entire story is told to you from a first person perspective. You are introduced to the main character, a one-armed man who is simply fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited with zombies. He is your guide through a gorgeously drawn wasteland, and over time through his struggles and good humor, he becomes our friend.
By having the viewer as an active participant in the action, a strong atmosphere is created that grips the reader until the very last page. We become emotionally invested in the story's outcome and are curious to see what fate lies in store for us and our one-armed pal.
Daybreak isn't like anything else in the 'zombie' genre of fiction. It is a sweet and heartfelt look at friendship during times of survival, and the zombies are just the element of distress that add to the story's overall landscape. This is a must-read comic for anyone who pines for a fresh look at visual storytelling.
By having the viewer as an active participant in the action, a strong atmosphere is created that grips the reader until the very last page. We become emotionally invested in the story's outcome and are curious to see what fate lies in store for us and our one-armed pal.
Daybreak isn't like anything else in the 'zombie' genre of fiction. It is a sweet and heartfelt look at friendship during times of survival, and the zombies are just the element of distress that add to the story's overall landscape. This is a must-read comic for anyone who pines for a fresh look at visual storytelling.
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Wasn't sure what constitutes an "art house" book when I saw this advertised as such and picked it up out of curiosity & b/c I like a good tale that involves the cannibalistic undead. And this is such a tale. Ralph's art work serves the story very well and at times it has the feel of deconstructing a horror movie frame by frame and reprinting them on the page. The story itself--man in post-apocalyptic world attempting to survive & the characters he meets--moved right along and compelled me to read on to see what happened. Don't let the "art house" description turn you off if such a thing would do so; if you enjoy what Robert Kirkman or George Romero have done with zombies, you'll enjoy this.
Format:Hardcover
Told from the point of view (POV) of you, the reader, the book opens with a one armed boy talking to you in a post-apocalyptic landscape surrounded with junk and dirt. You and the boy go on a journey that takes in the rest of this strange world until you realise that the reason why it all went to hell was because people started turning into zombies. That's right, this is an arty comic book version of the zombie apocalypse!
The drawing style is similar to James Kochalka's, which is no bad thing by the by, he's an excellent artist, but the story is really great, sweeping you up in the confusion into a fast paced plot and ultimately a personal tragedy. The point of view way of telling the story is different from how usual zombie stories are done and Brian Ralph does a fine job of telling the story via this approach.
The character of the one-armed boy is well written and his story arc is dealt with brilliantly, from a rapscallion you feel sorry for to ultimately a real person who bravely faces up to their fate.
I really enjoyed this book and felt that it deserves a wider audience, especially those who enjoy the zombie sub-genre of contemporary horror, but who also like really well done indie comics. Brian Ralph has written and drawn a wonderful comic that I loved reading, one that is definitely worth checking out for yourself.
The drawing style is similar to James Kochalka's, which is no bad thing by the by, he's an excellent artist, but the story is really great, sweeping you up in the confusion into a fast paced plot and ultimately a personal tragedy. The point of view way of telling the story is different from how usual zombie stories are done and Brian Ralph does a fine job of telling the story via this approach.
The character of the one-armed boy is well written and his story arc is dealt with brilliantly, from a rapscallion you feel sorry for to ultimately a real person who bravely faces up to their fate.
I really enjoyed this book and felt that it deserves a wider audience, especially those who enjoy the zombie sub-genre of contemporary horror, but who also like really well done indie comics. Brian Ralph has written and drawn a wonderful comic that I loved reading, one that is definitely worth checking out for yourself.
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