Showcase: The Walking Dead, Umbrella Academy: Dallas, and Mouse Guard: Winter 1152

[Stephanie]

Welcome to the first 2010 graphic novel Showcase! This time we'll annihilate zombies in The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1, meet Presidents and secret agents in The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, and watch small legends epically unfold in Mouse Guard Volume 2: Winter 1152.

The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1

When today's pop culture suffers from an overabundance of zombie fiction, putting a fresh spin on what's stinking old instead of dropping flesh bits everywhere you walk can be difficult. Exploring the genre's deeper waters, scribe Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore accomplish just that. Their visually excellent black and white comic, The Walking Dead, carries a burden similar stories lack: The Walking Dead ventures behind the chain-link fence and exploits the survival horror from all angles, including its characters' fates before, during, and after the infection's terror.

Like zombies hording a steaming pile of brains, The Walking Dead ultimately thrives on deep character interaction. After a gunshot wound sends him into a coma, officer Rick Grimes wakes to a deserted hospital populated only by walking corpses. Panicked and confused, Rick manages to escape the building unscathed and greets the blunt end of a shovel. Two survivors, Morgan Jones and his son Duane, explain what they know about the current disaster and offer their assistance until Rick heads toward Atlanta to search for his wife and child. After a few days he finds his family and a survivor camp, but each day in the apocalypse demands lethal mistakes, incites near-misses, and teaches valuable lessons. Sitting ducks don't last long in the living dead's open playground, but meandering between locales in the hopes of finding temporary residence, supplies, or even other stragglers doesn't come cheap, either. Not to mention the changing seasons bring additional dangers.

The Walking Dead presents as addicting and fascinating as the zombie idea itself. Although Kirkman remembers the genre's well-established zombie survival basics, the book instead focuses on how the living react to the diseased. The story skips the colossal government scheme and disregards well-prepared, combat-trained agents ready to tackle their decomposing enemies; instead, the action depicts everyday people struggling to retain their own humanity and maintain a sense of normalcy. Morality quickly becomes a prominent issue, and the reader endures the uneasy grind alongside the group praying they'll last another day. Kirkman's work wisely keeps you in the dark so that you're as lost and uninformed as the survivors—and itching for more.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas

Gerald Way and Gabriel Bá's second volume, The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, blasts time travel and political activism into indie superhero oblivion. Continuing the first book's impressive plot, in which the now-amnesiac Vanya Hargreeves (The White Violin) thundered the stage with musical bedlam, Dallas addresses the Umbrella Academy family's increasingly tumultuous relationships and investigates President Kennedy's assassination—thanks to a world-saving, secret global organization commanded by a Shubukin goldfish named Carmichael who bears genius intellect and operates a fish bowl suit. Gore and gunplay achieve new heights, and the creator's inventiveness skyrockets.

Umbrella Academy sibling Number Five details his zips through history and the special project that granted him expert assassin talents, and soon the Rumor, Spaceboy, Kraken, and Séance become involved in Number Five's latest assignment: keep tabs on his 1963 self and make sure Kennedy bites the bullet. The arc bursts with new flavor: Cowboy God's visit deepens Bá's artistic well, ghostly televisions bend the mind and eye alike, Way delights with a delightful touch of humor, and two psychopathic cartoon agents known as Hazel and Cha-Cha bombard the comic's pages with oddball insanity and a peculiar Girl Scouts' cookie obsession. Dallas brilliantly surpasses Apocalypse Suite, which still preserves its memorable gloss. The book's lush colors explode, the creative story fascinates, and Way's musical dedication sweetens the thriving characters and their world.

The trade wavers slightly when it aims the spotlight on Perseus, but otherwise the writer bulletproofs the rich, consistent storytelling with an air-tight seal that not even the Rumor can break. Finally, the superb ending wins hearts and simultaneously breaks them, as it leaves the reader pondering whether the characters can ultimately overcome their own adult wreckage, spoiled by childhood nostalgia and vanishing times. Opening Dallas inspires an innovative adventure that satisfies readers' lonely craving for amazing comics. History could use more books like The Umbrella Academy.

Mouse Guard Volume 2: Winter 1152

Writer/artist David Peterson spreads fairy tale pages and invites us into a mouse-crafted fantasy world. Mouse Guard Vol. 2: Winter 1152 captures the various Guard members' journeys, trudging through the snow-covered landscape and even tunneling under the frozen earth. Rand, Lockhaven's Shield-Bearer, suffers from a deadly ailment that only certain elixirs can cure. Although a select patrol group recovers a few bottles from a neighboring city, the harsh winter fosters other beastly dangers much larger than the sword and axe-wielding fighter mice. Hidden snow pits split the team, a hungry owl threatens the two above-ground carriers' lives, and spiteful bats enact their ancient grudge on the furry heroes.

Only some perils flare on the surface, however. An underground labyrinth called Darkheather—a dominion once ruled by the enemy weasel—harbors a vast, empty menagerie comprised of death and secrets. Unavenged bones await the cautious wanderers, and memories soon haunt one brave mouse, delivering closure and also bestowing him newfound respect. Meanwhile, treachery lurks within the mice's home safeguard, and the devious warrior Midnight's plot thickens with tainted loyalty and sinister betrayal. Mortal fights ensue, legends burn or vanish quietly under the snow, and creatures of the air and earth clash.

Peterson weaves quite a marvelous mouse's tale alight with humanity. Though the comic progresses at a leisurely, perhaps too sluggish pace and the otherwise charming rhyme and lore sometimes bury the pressing development, Winter 1152 flourishes. Peterson imagines a legacy that blossoms with unique anthropomorphic characters who undergo medieval trials but also experience the same tensions and emotions as we do. Nodding to fantasy fathers like Tolkien, Peterson immerses the reader in the interactive, bustling societies he meticulously creates. Despite his elaborate, perhaps excessive fashion, Peterson rises as a pensive word smith whose storytelling touches our hearts with wondrous ease.

You can find all of these trades over at the Impulse Creations shop. Know a book that deserves a place in the Showcase spotlight? Send an email to wita.onemetal@gmail.com with the subject line: “Showcase Suggestions.