It is 1971, and it's been three years since the blood soaked night that the dead rose from their graves, attacking and devouring the living. Now, the legacy of that horrific and unexplained event is about to be unleashed once again upon an unsuspecting world. But this time, there may be no escape for those in the terrifying clutches of the cannibalistic living dead! Hidden within the concrete walls of a secret medical research lab, someone has been studying the last remaining undead remnants of the marauding zombie army. Unleashed by the untimely intervention of a group of road weary bikers looking for an easy score, the walking dead renew their gut ripping campaign of terror. As each member of a rural community dies in the grotesque feeding frenzy of the zombies, so does the nightmare army grow as half-eaten victims rise up to join the ranks of the undead. Can anything possibly contain the contagion being spread by the escape of the living dead?
John A. Russo, sometimes credited as Jack Russo or John Russo, is an American screenwriter and film director most commonly associated with the 1968 horror classic film Night of the Living Dead. As a screenwriter, his credits include Night of the Living Dead, The Majorettes, Midnight, and Santa Claws. The latter two, he also directed. He has performed small roles as an actor, most notably the first ghoul who is stabbed in the head in Night of the Living Dead.
No he sentido la acción y la inquietud que otras historias de este estilo sí que han logrado transmitirme. Nos encontramos ante una amenaza zombie que está comenzando a surgir, pero todo se desarrolla de un modo muy rápido y parece que importa más destacar las mamarrachadas de algunos personajes que centrarnos en la lucha.
Para empezar, es cierto que este cómic es una continuación de lo ocurrido en otro, lo cual puede afectar de cara a entender los orígenes del problema zombie y seguramente sea la razón por la que a los personajes no les resulta algo extraordinario que un muerto viviente se les aparezca. Sí, se asustan, corren, intentan salvarse y todo eso, pero no les pilla por sorpresa que un cadáver andante quiera devorarlos. Yo no he leído ese cómic anterior, y ni sabía que existía cuando cogí este en la biblioteca. Aunque eso puede justificar que me chirriaran algunas cosas, hay otras que tampoco me han convencido y que se deben a aspectos de la trama que directamente considero que están mal trabajados.
Tras una redada en un centro médico de investigación, los zombies empiezan a campar a sus anchas. Nuestros protagonistas principales serán un padre y su hija adulta, quienes deberán hacer frente a los muertos y a unos vivos que tampoco serán muy amigables. No me gustó demasiado la evolución de los acontecimientos porque no les notaba tensión ni veía reacciones creíbles por parte de los personajes. Ni siquiera se percibía el dolor que algunas muertes deberían haberles causado. Los vivos “malos” se reducían a una panda de delincuentes, eran tan absurdos que incluso en una situación extrema tenían su apetito sexual muy activo. La trama se centra en ir dando tumbos de un lado para otro y pasar de una escena a otra sin pena ni gloria.
Otro detalle que no me convenció es la caracterización de las mujeres. No soy ni mojigata ni me asusto porque se le quiera meter erotismo a una historia, pero no venía a cuento que aquí las mujeres siempre estuvieran en plan sexy y tuvieran unos pechos de tamaño exagerado mientras que ellos eran tíos del montón y visualmente no se exagerara ninguna de sus características físicas. Y, hasta en el último segundo, la belleza de la protagonista tiene que servir para que un hombre suspire por ella y que a él eso le deje lo suficientemente extasiado como para que la lucha zombie sea más llevadera.
Son solo 120 páginas, y para mí fue una ventaja que no fuera más extenso, ya que nunca llegué a sentirme realmente atrapada en la lectura. Es pasable, pero me generó indiferencia. El desenlace no es cerrado, quedan frentes abiertos y hay un descubrimiento que era esperable. Afortunadamente, no sufriré por no saber cómo sigue todo porque me da exactamente igual lo que pase.
Avatar is the comics what grindhouse is to cinema. I mean that as a complement. If you want gritty stories with graphic violence and nudity, than Avatar is the place to go. It's usually not the deepest stories (although sometimes there are exceptions such as the Alan Moore books and others) but you do get some entertaining stories. Avatar allows its creators more freedom than probably any other "mainstream" comic publisher.
This series is very much a grindhouse version of Night of the Living Dead. I suppose you could almost classify the original film the same way, but I don't think the genre truly existed at the time it was released. In any case, this is just what you'd expect. Not the high drama of The Walking Dead, but an R rated horror movie in comic form. This is set in 1971 and there's mad scientists, bikers, and a ton of zombies.
If this sounds like something you think you'll like, then you probably will.
John Russo is back with yet another alternate sequel (can there be so many sequels if they are all about the same time frame?) to Night of the Living Dead in "Escape of the Living Dead" (Historical side note: after they split, Russo retained the naming rights to the phrase "of the Living Dead" and thus why all of Romero's stories were named "of the Dead")
Three years have passed since the dead have returned to life and this comic series follows directly after Russo's Return of the Living Dead and we have the law searching for Dr. Melrose, the supposed expert on the return of the dead to life and trying to put a stop to their experiments on what is believed to be the last of the ghouls. Toss in a biker gang, a bar owner and his beautiful daughter, plus a lot of nudity, and you get the picture. Again, it's easy to tell the difference between Russo and Romero's stories: Russo's have a bit of sex and nudity (in both the graphic novel and movies) and Romero a lot less (with a small sex scene in the book adaptation of Dawn of the Dead)
escape of the living dead starts off a few years after the original night of the living dead under the presumption that humanity named together and took care of the zombie threat.
written by John Russo, who helped pen the original script, the book is full of great zombie smashing fun along with a nice family story to go along with it. the Brinkman family was greatly affected by the first outbreak and now they find themselves thrown into the middle again as another group of zombies approaches the town from a secret facility.