Remains [Paperback]

Steve Niles (Author), Kieron Dwyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2004

When the world goes mad, a blackjack dealer and an exotic dancer are mysteriously spared. But now they're trapped in Reno, surrounded by a veritable army of the undead - and with no idea what might wait for them beyond the city limits if they can escape. Are they the last man and woman on Earth? And if so, how long can they last?

Product Details

• Paperback: 116 pages
• Publisher: IDW Publishing (December 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932382380
• ISBN-13: 978-1932382389
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,003,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best zombie comic, but was a good enough read, February 18, 2006

By 

A. Sandoc "sussarakhen" (San Pablo, California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remains (Paperback)

Of all the type of monster-based stories I like to read it's the one about zombies and them taking over the world that catches my eye all the time. Zombie movies, novels, games and comic books are like gold to me. I was surprised and excited when I heard that Steven Niles was going to do a zombie comic book mini-series. I thoroughly enjoyed his 30 Days of Night comics. I even remember the good work he did in tandem with Clive Barker for the mid-90's Night of the Living Dead: London comic book. I really was interested in seeing Niles take another crack at writing a zombie story. He finally did and its called Remains.

The time finally came to reading the collected volume of the miniseries and I have to say that it didn't blow me away. It's not as bad as Toe Tags by Romero (he should stick to making zombie movies) but also not as great as Kirkman's The Walking Dead. Steve Niles' Remains falls right down the middle. The horrofic nature that makes zombies such great monsters is shown in full-color courtesy of Kieron Dwyer's artwork. All the gory and bloodspatter zombie movies and stories have is here as well and it's one of the pros in the overall finished product. I also thought the cause of the zombie apocalypse was a darkly comic and interesting twist on the zombie origin. Who would've thought that a booger-pickin' brat would mean the end of the world.

Where Remains doesn't get as right as it did with the zombies and the basic premise of the story is in the characters. None of the characters in the book seem well-thought out. They're all cliched and almost caricatures of your typical survivor template. There's really no sense of sympathy I could garner to want these people to survive. The situations they put themselves into make for exciting sequences and events but it's been done better in Kirkman's The Walking Dead. Even the over-the-top situations have been done with abit more fun, flair and panache in the classic Deadworld and Evil Ernie comics. Though unlike some reviewers I thought the circus ball idea was a fun bit of diversion.

Steve Niles' could've done a better zombie comic and has, but his ok work with Remains still made for a good enough read. Nothing stood out in my mind in terms of story but the artwork was very good especially close-up details of the zombies. If any, I would put Remains as more in the realm of a horror-comedy than that of a straight-up horror comic. Here's to hoping that Niles gets another chance to really write up a zombie comic book on the same level as 30 Days of Night and Wake the Dead.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just another zombie comic, June 23, 2007

By 

Patrick S. Dorazio "Author of The Dark Trilogy" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Remains (Paperback)

I have started to pick up as many zombie comics as I can find on Amazon, most of which pale in comparison to "The Walking Dead" by Robert Kirkman, who just about everyone who has reviewed this work has referred to already. Its kind of tough to compare something that comes off as a casual whim of a story to the epic feel of TWD though. I would instead compare this to the likes of Zombies!: Feast and Zombies!: Eclipse of the Undead, which are more in line with this.
Kirkman has chosen to make something substantial and ongoing, and after six volumes, with the seventh coming out, none of the others I have read so far even hold a candle to it. His characters have a real feel to them, they are vivid and raw. In other, shorter works, we are usually subjected to stereotypes and uninspired, angry people willing to turn on each other with little to no explanation.
This was a twenty minute read that I picked up used from Amazon and like the others I have mentioned above, it wasn't all that memorable. Much like in Zombies!: Feast, the characters, for the most part, are purposefully loathesome and the small amount of background you get doesn't make you have any sympathy for them. The cause in this story, is nuclear radiation, with some of the zombies getting extra dosage, which makes them into...superzombies?
Despite the routine here, I just enjoy zombie books and graphic novels so take that into account with the 3 star rating. That plus the fact that we get a point/counterpoint between Scott Ian and Patton Oswald in the front on the pros and cons of fast zombies vs. slow zombies. That was the best part of the entire book.

3.0 out of 5 stars Liked enough but No undead love affair, July 30, 2010

By 

TastyBabySyndrome "Matthew Lewis, author of M... ("Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Little Tendril Baseball Team, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remains (Paperback)

We get rid of weapons that can destroy the human race. Only problem - idiots do it. That means that the rest of the world suffers and, well, zombies pop up. Out of this you initially have two survivors that have a little history together and, luckily, they hate each other. It isn't a thing, however, because that's the way the end of the world is - not a happy camper's playground.

First, I have to agree with the reviewer that compared this to cliver Barker's books from the 90's in which he explored the dead. It has a bit of that feel and, if the idea it was starting off (1) was brought to conclusion and (2) had more of a finished outlok, it would have been great. Taking survivors and giving them areas to hold onto as the living dead get deeper and deeper - that seems the way to go. The only problem with this is that it doesn't finish the grounds of what seems to me to be set-up material; the pictures look rough (I hate it when people want to call this stylized), the characters are not really finished, and things happen without any real provocation. The zombies have a reason, sure, and the people survive that as well. Things get harder each day because the zombies adapt - again, I get that. But the crux of the story seems to want to be shocking - and it isn't.

I found this at a good price and was happy with that. Still, I can't recommend it because it is a zombie story - and that's that. More or less, it doesn't seem to know how to be anything else. I wish I could tout it more, hapily in fact, because I know the contributors could have done more. Stil, this seems like a sketch that never really got going.