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Giant Days, Vol.: 1 & iZombie, Vol. 1: Dead to the World

giant days, vol. 1

By John Allison (Author), Lissa Treiman (Illustrator) Boom!Box (Publisher)

Great things should not go unappreciated, especially when the one responsible for it has been credited with some amazing stuff in the past. John Allison may be best known for his hilarious webcomics Bad Machinery and Scary Go Round, but not loving his physical comic series should be classified as a crime. In Giant Days, Susan Ptomely, Daisy Wooton, and Esther de Groot have been at university for three weeks now, and everything has already gone to hell (although that might just be due to the effects of Esther’s constant radiating a Drama Field). The book is full of perverted boys, worst enemies, and mystical tattoos—in other words, typical college stuff! Everything is done in Lissa Treiman’s loose, yet realistic, art style, akin to M Goodwin’s work in Princeless. In fact, readers of Princeless would love Giant Days. Bright colors are used throughout the entire graphic novel, but used in ways at times to emphasize a character’s emotions, whether positive or negative. Nothing is safe from being used to give the characters more life, especially not the backgrounds, which are often utilized to highlight the characters. But don’t be fooled by the brightness and silliness of the main characters and the eccentric events surrounding them. This is still a university, after all, and Giant Days doesn’t shy away from mentioning the real-life hazards of campus life. Anything from nicotine addiction to taking drugs could be and will be par for the course, as will the difference between feminism and man-hating. And, for those with Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)? There’s a character with it. Represented, at last!



IZOMBIE, VOL. 1: DEAD TO THE WORLD

By Chris Roberson (Author), Michael Allred (Illustrator) DC Comics/Vertigo (Publisher)

If you’ve read X-Men: The Return or you love Cinderella in the Fables series, then you probably like Chris Roberson’s work. In fact, if you’re a fan of the TV show “iZombie,” then you already know how relevant Roberson is with his comic book series, from which the show is loosely adapted. Gwen Dylan isn’t the luckiest girl in the world. While she tries to fit in as much as she can with normal society, she constantly remembers that she isn’t human anymore. She’s no hero, she’s just a gravedigger with a strange diet. She’s a zombie that hates the taste of brains, her best friend is a ghost from the late 60s or early 70s, her other friend is a were-terrier, and she needs to solve the murder of the guy whose brains she just ate or his memories will keep on haunting her. Oh, and she has to deal with vampires and monster hunters, and one of those hunters is pretty cute. Roberson has created a world where the supernatural exists, whether they want to or not. Were-people are “infected”; it’s repeated that ghosts are unable to go on to what comes after and are stuck; and, to remain sane, other forms of the undead are forced to do acts that result in others’ death. All of this is made darker by the art style of Michael Allred, which more often than not mimics pop art. This all works with the type of story that one wouldn’t expect to come out of anything to do with zombies: a murder mystery. Even those tired of the zombie trend will love iZombie, which is a definite exception to the “typical” zombie tale.

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