Disposable Lit Reviews

WeeBee Comics, 1989
No ISBN

Out of Print
Find it used at
eBay

Prologue:

The comics industry has had an interesting cyclical pattern. In the early ’80’s, when the direct market opened up (i.e., dedicated comic book stores instead of just newsstand distribution), there was a little rush of independent publishers, as everyone tried to get in on the newfound revenue source. In the mid/late ’80’s, after the counterintuitive success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a new wave of black and white comics glutted the market — after all, TNMT had featured cheap printing and crummy art, so why should anyone else try harder? In the early ’90’s, it was the success of some breakaway Marvel artists under the “Image” label that started yet another gold rush, this time (in counterpoint to the last) focusing instead on high-end printing and meticulous artwork (the writing wasn’t really anyone’s focus). Each time, the glut and demise was largely the fault of speculators — collectors whose main concern was not whether a given title contained good artwork and effective storytelling, but whether the market value would appreciate and the collection would become a good investment. Somehow people kept forgetting that, if everyone has one, there’s no reason for the value to appreciate; rarity is what drives a collectibles market. (Ah, where would capitalism be without stupid people?)

In the middle of this, a small outfit called Arrow Comics was enjoying the common success. The notable difference was that Arrow actually put out some quality comics. Their main beginning stable was of anthologies, one-shots, and mini-series. Their first bona fide hit was an ongoing fantasy title called The Realm about a bunch of teens transported to a fantasy world (sort of like Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame novel series, but without as much direct roleplaying content). The art was an nifty American analogue to anime that served the story perfectly.

After getting their feet wet, Arrow decided that they wanted to add a horror title to their line-up. Casting around for some talent to get it off the ground, they ran into a young artist named Vince Locke, who had submitted a sample for one of their anthologies. Co-publisher Stuart Kerr got together with him about maybe starting a zombie series. And Deadworld was born.

The Review Proper:

The setup is both simple and familiar: The dead roam the earth. All over. The story kicks off a few weeks after the living dead have started devouring the living (i.e., right about the same point as Dawn of the Dead). Our protagonists are a half-dozen late teens (and one kid brother) in a commandeered schoolbus, trying to stay out of the major cities (just crawling with reanimated corpses, you know), but close enough to the remains of civilization to scrounge for supplies; they’re also trying to figure out what the hell to do next.

Obviously, simple episodes of a busload of teens encountering zombies and just escaping with their lives would soon get tired. There’s a larger arc to all of this, which they stumble upon when, amongst the normal undead, they encounter a trio of zombies with the motor coordination to ride a motorcycle and the malevolent intelligence to speak. The leader, known in the series as “King Zombie” (think Iron Maiden’s “Eddie” with mirrorshades and biker’s leathers_ gets supremely miffed at our heroes for killing his compatriots, and makes their deaths a personal vendetta.

But King Zombie also has another purpose. Out there somewhere is Deake, the man who was the assistant to the white-collar sorcerer whose bungled spell accidentally created a rift between our universe and ours, allowing the malevolent beings possessing the dead to leak through. Deake is the key to opening the door again, wide and permanent. And what do you think the odds are that Deake and our heroes will run into each other?

It’s a gruesome series (as evidenced by the cover of the book — click here to see it, but consider yourself warned), and pulls few punches either in visuals or storyline, but unlike most fanboy zombie projects, it’s not simply gore for the sake of gore. There’s an apocalypic fatalism here, and I can’t help but refer back again to Romero’s work for comparison. No one, even the first time they see it, is surprised that no one survives the ending of Night of the Living Dead; there’s an inevitability to the whole thing, and undercurrent that lets you know that, realistically, there’s no way in hell these people can survive. So here, although that ending is perpetually put off; there’s still a clear acknowledgement, seen through a veneer of denial, that there’s nowhere our heroes can go where society can reassert itself and halt the triumph of entropy the dead represent. The few other groups of survivors they encounter either have their heads in the sand or have adopted a militant “survivalist” stance that makes them as much a menace to the remnants of civilization as the dead themselves.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that, of all artistic expressions that have been directly inspired by the Romero Dead trilogy, Deadworld captures its essential appeal best, and that’s almost completely dependent on Locke’s art. Both cartoony and gritty, unreal enough to convey the complete breakdown in normality that the rising of the dead represents but textured enough to keep it real and immediate; it’s simply stunning in its ability to capture the necessary ambience. Locke’s technique is still rouch around the edges here; the combination of shadowy settings, lack of color cues, and too many dark-haired characters often makes it difficult to keep track of who is who. But watching Locke’s artistic growth over the seven issues contained in this compilation is like watching Barry Windsor-Smith’s phenomenal progress over the first few issues of Conan the Barbarian. It’s one of my favorite pieces of graphic storytelling.

Epilogue:

Nothing lasts forever, and a few issues past the seven featured in this compilation, Arrow Comics was dragged down by failing distributors and unpaid bills. Locke, who owned the book (and who had progressed from being co-plotter in the early days ot full co-scripter by the end of this arc) shopped it around and bounced a couple of times until landing with Caliber Press (who also inherited The Realm, coincidentally). While the collapse of the black-and-white market was nothing to coast through, Caliber managed to keep its head above water (and is still holding on a decade later).

But the other problem was that, after a dozen issues spanning several years (Deadworld averaged out to a quarterly release), Locke was getting tired of writing and drawing zombies. First he cut back to just doing the inking and lettering (which still managed to give the texture familiar to the original fans), and then, by a little after the dozenth issue, just lettering with some occasional backup stories or pinups, and the art chores became a revolving door. Most of the new artists weren’t bad per se (Mark Bloodworth both wrote and drew several issues; Dan and David Day also provided the art for a couple), but it simply wasn’t right. Even these good artists simply couldn’t deliver the visual impact that had characterized Deadworld from the beginning, and there were some artists doing a single issue here or there (who shall remain nameless) who simply sucked. And with all of the disparate artistic styles, it became almost impossible even to identify the characters on sight (remember, none of them had an easily identifyable trademark like a red “S” on his chest).

Not that the characters were worth recognizing any more. The writing also became a temp position, with each new writer bringing in ideas for grandiose new story arcs and subplots which then dragged the series down when that writer left after an issue or two and a new writer came in with his own big ideas. Instead of following a single group trying to find a haven, our protagonists got split up, each was associated with a cadre of new characters, then they split up… Soon, each of the many storylines got only two to three pages in each issue; that would have made identifying the characters extremely iffy on a quarterly-or-worse series even if the art had stayed consistent. And I haven’t even mentioned the many back-up stories, mini-series, and one-shots that managed to dilute the original vision into something like a fanzine.

Eventually, the powers that be at Caliber realized that things were going south drastically, and attempted to reboot the series; issues #25 and #26 boasted the return of Vince Locke on the inks (with the understanding that they let him dissociate himself from Deadworld once and for all after that; he was getting professional work from Marvel on titles like Sandman, and didn’t have the space in his schedule for the Deadworld work). In 1993, issue #26 ended the series.

Which Caliber immediately started up again, renumbered at #1, picking a single one of the multiple storylines and following it exclusively. Again, it was a nice idea, but a Deadworld without Locke’s visuals simply didn’t have the power to reach out and grab the imagination; coasting mostly on appreciation of the glory days, the second series lasted a little over a dozen issues and then gave up the ghost.

On a side note, Stuart Kerr was involved in a revival of Arrow Comics in 1993, and tried to replicate his own earlier success with a series called The Dead. Again, without the apocalyptic charisma of Locke’s visual storytelling, the series was seen for what it very obviously was, yet another in a long line of derivative endeavors holding onto Romero’s apron strings. How derivative, you ask? Well, take a look at this promotional poster and tell me if it reminds you of anything:

(It also appears that Arrow Comics is currently in its third incarnation, a fact which I found to my surprise when I idly typed “http://www.arrowcomics.com” into my browser. It doesn’t seem like anybody else knows they’re out there either. And yes, The Dead is back.)

Nathan Shumate