The Dead and the Damned #1 – 2
writer: Sebastian Gilner
artist: Kelly Williams
Writer: Jeff Powell
Publisher: goat flight press
It’s a big week for Goats Flying Press, a Kickstarter-led publishing project Sebastian Gilner. The Goat , a graphic novel titled The Goat , has launched its third crowdfunding campaign in about a year Elginwood Fables, From Xinxing Cartoonist Ba June, with letters Aditya Bidhikar. The book was an instant hit, hitting its $8,000 funding goal in 50 minutes and ultimately raising just over $28,000, with a full month left in the campaign as of this writing.
In other words, this is a people real This is a major success for any publisher, whether on Kickstarter or not. So it stands to reason that Goat Flight Press will be getting some new looks, which makes now the perfect time to take stock of the publisher’s first two comics, The Dead and the Damned #1 and #2. Anyway, I was planning on reviewing these books because – as we’ll discuss later – they have so much skeleton that it’s almost comic book reviewer malfeasance no Writing these books on Halloween.
So yeah, that’s probably the first thing you notice about these comics. Skeleton. Most of them are wearing armor and brandishing medieval weapons. They’re rendered by artists to perfection as heavy metal cover art Kelly Williams. Written by Girner, designed and lettered by Jeff Powell, The dead and the damned This is a comic that lets you know what you’re being sold from the get-go, with a brief three-panel intro on the first page (see above) and then jumping straight to a pair of dark fantasy battle panels, the kind of detail that makes You’re shocked by the sheer variety of the violent absurdity of the undead hordes of the first (see below) (flying severed heads, anyone?… Also, see below the following) in the second.
By the end of the second spread, you really should know whether you’re interested in this series. I know I’m fascinated by this. This is a comic that understands the medium very well, understands the genre it works for, and does its business by combining the two perfectly. But it’s not all dark fantasy warfare (although it is most Dark Fantasy War is here). These were oversized comics, with each issue being 48 pages long, and they all tended to deliver mythology, character backstories revealed at just the right moments, lofty questions about the nature of death, war and combat, and even some great banter heroes something.
The Dead and the Damned #1 and #2 Dark comics are quick to read and a lot of fun because of their inherent darkness. They know exactly what they are. The oversized format is a perfect example. These books are as much a showcase for the artist as anything, and being a little larger really allows the details in the art to shine. They are also lightly paneled. I didn’t do the math, but it feels like it’s more common for pages to have 3 or 4 panels than 5 panels.
Another really interesting visual choice here is color. This is primarily a story told in grayscale, but it does use color to evoke big moments, from spilled blood to small details of ethereal magic. This work shows that the world has essentially been a wasteland ruled by death for as long as anyone can remember, which fits well with the way color was used in the first two issues.
Overall, I could go on and on with a list of things I liked in these comics, but I think the central takeaway here is that this is a book written by an experienced comics professional who thought of every detail. It’s also a crowdfunding campaign that works well, offering a sense of prestige relative to its price point, a quick fulfillment timeline, and the feeling that you’re in for something cool, new, and truly creator-driven in comics The feeling of bottom.
The Dead and the Damned #1 and #2 are now available at the Goats Flying Press online store.
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