Rabid World #2

Rabid World #2

Scout Comics 2021

Written by Todd Cinani

Illustrated by Oleg Okunev

Lettered by Luca Gattoni

Deep in the underground bioweapons base, a team of scientists desperately try to discover the origin of the virus ravaging the world. The hoards of infected cannot be contained and the cities have fallen. Meanwhile, the crew of the Jibberish embark a harrowing sail south to escape the Chesapeake Bay.

This might have just usurped everything else out there to become my new favourite title! First I’m a complete sucker for and end of the world as we know it scenario, I love zombies even if they’ve been done to death and then to add in some real science into the book and wham back thank you Sam i’m in like Flynn. Also that this isn’t being told solely from one point of view is a nice touch and though I do see how the two aspect will find each other and meet up, I just don’t know how it’s going to happen and I look forward to learning that. In the meantime this issue has a lot of stuff going on and the way that Todd lays this out is darn near perfectly done and it impresses the hell out of me.

I am in love with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is impeccably rendered. The character development through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances that they encounter do an absolutely magnificent job in making these feel like real people. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we’re caught up on the drama exceptionally well.

I am a big fan of the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen as well as newly emerge. The avenues that are open and being explored and those that new open are where we see this amazing characterisation, on the boat or in Fort Levine and whether these work with the main arc or swirl around it they add this extra depth and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly achieved.

The interiors here are bloody amazing to see. The linework is superb and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is astonishingly well rendered. I love the style of the work and how everyone looks different from each other, the faces, facial expressions and body language help to further the characterisation nicely. I love one looks like Fred Gwynne too by the by. We do see a fair amount of backgrounds being utilised which makes me happy and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book is marvellous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a brilliant eye for storytelling. The colour work is amazing. The pops of colour we see and then this looks like a beige construction type material and how the shading we see helps create the depth of dimension within the imagery is absolutely brilliantly rendered. The shading, highlights and shadow work are bloody brilliant and I mean that more than words can say.

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The more we learn about the characters, the more we see the story unfold and the more we see these zombies the more intense this becomes. This isn’t your typical zombie tale and the drama is almost equivalent to a night time soap opera and that’s phenomenal to see. With some of the strongest and most intricate writing and characterisation wrapped up in these bloody well dynamic interiors makes this that one cannot miss series out there!