The Rise #2

The Rise #2

Heavy Metal Comics 2021

Written by George C. Romero

Illustrated by Diego Yapur

Coloured by DC Alonso

Lettered by Saida Temofonte

The film Night of the Living Dead changed popular culture forever, and now George C. Romero, the son of legendary film director George A. Romero, tells the story before the worst night on Earth. Learn about the death, destruction, and tragedy that led to the birth of the modern zombie in this prequel horror saga to the most impactful horror film franchise in history.

The film was simple, the dead rise (they’re coming to get you Barbara) and eat others who die, rise up and continue the cycle. Meaning all hell breaks loose. After that the stories became more involved and the zombies became less and less, much to my chagrin but I digress. What George is doing here is telling a lot of story about leading up to the night that the dead rise from their graves and mankind is put on the endangered species list. I love that this is such an interesting and convoluted story that honours the past in order to create the future. I mean zombies have been around in many cultures for thousands of years and few can raise the dead for their own means but never on a scale like we’re going to see.

I am thrilled by 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 presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter really does a magnificent job in fleshing them out as people we know or can relate to. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story it draws the reader further in extremely well.

I am loving the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. The avenues that continue to open up to us are sensational and as we see the different arcs within this story running simultaneously add this fabulous depth, dimension 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 impeccably rendered.

The interiors here are absolutely fantastic! The linework we see is clean, crisp and strong and with the way we see the varying weights and techniques to create this level & quality of detail work is bloody marvellous. While I normally say that I want to see more backgrounds the way we see the composition within the panels and how they bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is brilliantly rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The creativity and imagination that we see is pretty amazing and to see the dead like we do is creepy as all get out. The colour work is inspired. The reds, blacks and white that we see through the various hues and tones within the colours is stunning and how it brings the shading, highlights and shadow work shows an extraordinary eye for how colour works and how to maximise its effects.

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The people in this story are just as creepy in their actions and behaviour as the walking dead are going to be. It is amazing to me that these folks are doing what they are doing and that while some reasons seem altruistic we all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and they should’ve known that nothing good was to come of this, but nay nay they didn’t even consider it. With some absolutely fantastic writing and characterisation alongside these bloody brilliant interiors are guaranteed to creep you out seven ways to Sunday.