Revival is a indie must-read. There are few comic books out there that don’t have my favorite super heroes in them that I look forward to. Revival is definitely one of them.
The story is set in rural Wisconsin, and guess what? The dead have begun to rise. Townsfolk and the media call them ‘revivers’ and the CDC has quarantined the college town to contain the phenomenon.
The main character is Officer Dana Cypress and while the dead are coming back, she still has a murder to solve. It gets just a little bit more tricky however- now the recently revived can be a suspect. May Tao is another character that the story focuses on. She’s a reporter and the first to cover the revivers when one came back as she interviewed a cremation technician about his job.
Revival is a unique take on zombies- instead of portraying them as the shuffling brainless creatures, Tim Seeley keeps secrets from you and lets you believe that they try to resume their normal lives as if they never died. There’s something sinister hiding out in the woods and in nightmares, though- a large white evil creature. It’s difficult to describe such a thing and Mike Norton captures all your fears masterfully with his art.
It’s interesting to see the undead written and drawn in such a way after popular shows, movies, and comics paint them as flesh-hungry monsters. While the premise is amazing and very entertaining to read, the actual plot is a little bit more difficult to grasp after just reading it once. To get the full effect of the story, you most likely will have to reread it. Rereading it isn’t such a bad thing either, as the emotions are still real even though you know what’s going to happen. The art helps to keep your attention and disgust you when the time is right. It’s well-drawn and doesn’t distract the reader from the story line. Clean lines but detailed imagery is important to the suspension of belief that Revival pulls off quite nicely.
In this issue, further evidence is revealed for Dana and May is accosted by a character you meet in Revival #1. In addition to these separate incidents, Officer Dana Cypress is introduced to May for the first time in issue #4.
Overall, Revival is something that every indie comic lover needs to pick up, as most of the nuances are hard to describe and best to be experienced.
4.5/5
REVIVAL
IMAGE COMICS
TIM SEELEY, story
MIKE NORTON, art
MARK ENGLERT, colors
