Stitched, Volume 1

Stitched (collected editions) #1

by Garth Ennis, Mike Wolfer (Illustrator)

Garth Ennis and Mike Wolfer unleash the biggest horror series of the year! From the mind of Garth Ennis comes the modern chapter of an ancient horror. Ripped straight from the debut of his first-ever writing/directing effort comes the ongoing comic book continuation of the acclaimed short film, Stitched! The three survivors of an American military helicopter crash discover that there is something even more deadly than the Taliban controlled countryside they find themselves trapped in. Garth Ennis weaves a tale that combines today's headlines with his trademark vision of the supernatural into a modern horror masterpiece. Supported by the largest promotional campaign Avatar has ever done, this new on-going series is certain to appeal to Ennis' legions of fans as it pushes the envelope of horror beyond the boundaries of sanity and into fresh nightmares. Stitched #1 is available with a Regular cover, Wraparound cover, and Gore cover by series artist Mike Wolfer, and a special Stitched Movie Photo cover retailer incentive cover.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Zombies, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

176 pages, Comic

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Ennis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.

Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.

Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.

Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.

While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.

Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.

After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.

In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.

Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.

In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.

In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 4 out of 5]

An American Blackhawk helicopter goes down in the Eastern Afghanistan mountains but her crew survive. They meet up with the British forces they were going to relieve and discover a horrific new threat: shuffling hooded undead figures, their eyes and mouths stitched together, who can’t be stopped with bullets. How are they gonna make it out of there alive?!

Stitched is another great Garth Ennis comic that I was going to say would make a great horror movie but something in the back of my head made me google what movies Ennis has been involved in and, wouldn’t ya know it, Stitched was his directorial debut in 2011! It’s an awesome setup: a small group of soldiers with limited ammo, some of them injured, making their way through enemy territory blind with anti-American forces closing in AND the added threat of zombie-types on their tail. I’m sure it’s a fine short but I’d still like someone more experienced to turn this into a great feature.

Though similar to zombies, Ennis’ Stitched are different in that they’re controlled by black-robed figures twirling tin cans - sounds silly but take out the black robes or shoot the cans and the Stitched freeze like statues. Whereas with zombies who shuffle around til they’re put down, our characters can get right up close and personal with the Stitched when they’re deactivated who can restart their murderous ways as soon as another tin can starts up. I liked that sudden on/off threat variation.

Ennis is basically Mister War Comics so it’s unsurprising that he writes the cast of international servicemen so well - their interactions, ribbing, etc. were very convincing. If there’s one critique it’s that the story is a bit too long at seven issues. Once things are established around issue three or four, Ennis should’ve tried to wrap everything up by issue five or maybe six as it goes on without really adding much - it’s just more shooting, etc. But it’s a minor complaint, I still liked it.

Mike Wolfer’s art is excellent - loved the Afghan landscapes, the Stitched were very creepily designed, and the action was drawn well. Because this is an Avatar comic, there is a LOT of gore so be prepared for some very graphic scenes of limbs being ripped off, people being eviscerated, heads being shot off, and so on. Some of the main cast’s faces were a bit unremarkable and I had a hard time differentiating between some of them but to be fair to Wolfer he’s drawing soldiers all wearing the same camo gear with roughly the same body types so he did a good job with the material he was given.

Stitched is a very entertaining and well put-together horror story with a contemporary flavour to it given the Afghanistan war backdrop. It’s extremely dark and grim but so long as you’re ok with that you’ll get a lot out of this exciting comic.

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked Crossed better, but the characters here do a good job of carrying the story. They are skilled combatants that can hold their own in a fight. Their interactions are sometimes funny, other times serious and professional. I enjoyed the more personal dialogue that revealed their personalities. It seems that war brings that out in people. You never know when it's your last day, so you cling to whatever you can and open up to people you just met.

A US helicopter on a rescue mission goes down in Afganistan behind enemy lines. Lt. Pruitt, corporal Twiggy and lt. Cooper survive the crash, but their lives are in danger. They are being hunted not by the Taliban, but by near-indestructable human-shaped monsters they name stitches, animated by Afgani with rattlers. The British squad they were supposed to extract join them, but ammo is scarce and the road back to camp is long.

They capture Nigel, the leader of a small group of men with rattles and find what the stitches are: dead men resurrected by black magic who are used by a human trafficking operation as shock-troops and protection. Right before reaching the trafficker's base they get attacked by more stitches. They survive, barely, after losing one more man. Nigel tries to escape and is killed for it.

The trafficker's base is the best bet the group has of contacting help, so they decide to assault it. The shooting takes a heavy toll on them, but they manage to save several women and children before being rescued by the army.

[JL Shioshita · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a huge Garth Ennis fan, I was a bit disappointed at first. I guess I wasn't expecting the story to essentially boil down to a zombie tale. I have a touch of the zombie fatigue and had to stop myself from just flat out ending it once I realized that was the direction it was heading. In the end though, I appreciated the characters and found the supernatural mystery surrounding how the zombies were created interesting. The climax was fun and people died in ways I was not expecting. Definitely worth a read if you're into zombies or stories that mix war with horror. If you're not into that though, it's probably not worth your time.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical high-gore Avatar book, lots of militaristic antics, plenty of dialogue between more-than-one-dimensional characters, and a little supernatural element thrown in.

After reading dozens of Garth Ennis, and most of the Mike Wolfer stuff that he's done with Ellis & Ennis, I feel like I've seen this kind of writing plenty of times before, and it did very little for me.

You know when you're watching another slasher movie on Netflix - the ones that Netflix boosts from the 2.2 stars average to 2.4 stars for you? And you watch it because of the silly cover-with-the-semi-topless-college-blonde, or because the summary includes the word "nazi" or "footless wonder"? And about five minutes in they dump a bucket or two of gore on screen, and you think, "Wow I know where this crapfest is going..." - but keep watching because you've got a beer in hand and no one to criticise your choice of late-evening entertainment?

Yeah, this was kinda like that. Ennis and Wolfer, evil soulless enemies to bloody-up, and superfluous amounts of gore. (Superfluous - you know where I first learned the word? Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf, read it in my high school Canadian Literature class. The naive protagonist gets sent by the Canadian government to the far Arctic north, and he opens one of his supply crates and says to himself, "...and a bundle of seven axes (to this day I do not know why seven, for I was going to a treeless land where even one would have been superfluous)...")

I don't even know if I *guiltily* enjoyed the gore - it just seemed incidental to the actual story (especially some of the "splash" pages). I did find the dialogue decent and the plot unfolded in a serviceably not-entirely-predictable manner.

The art was as decent as most stuff I've seen from Avatar, which is fine for small, a low-overhead publisher. At least the action was easy to follow, and the characters' faces were easy to distinguish (tho for some reason I still got confused who were the Yanks and who were the Brits).

Given the hype when this book was first released, and that they had a TV series in the works, I expected a lot more from this. Not *bad*, but pretty average.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very original horror/war tale from Garth Ennis with great art from Mike Wolfer. Avatar continues to impress me as the quality of their books is very underrated.

This follows some soliders in Afghanistan who run into some zombies, but not the usual zombies. It's hard to get into here, but a group of clerics have learned to control the dead after they do a ritual which involves stitching the bodies up. And did I mention the victims are usually alive during the ritual?

Violent and dark story, although after reading Crossed even violent and dark can seem mild. Overall a good horror tale that isn't the same old thing, even if at first glance it seems to be.

[Zedsdead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep in Afghanistan. The surviving crew of a downed Apache are hunted by teams of dessicated, deathless, mindless ghouls that only move when they can hear the sound of pebbles rattling in a tin can. Kill the wielders of the cans, stop the Stitched.

Stitched is a product of the deeply-knowledgable-military side of Ennis--the side that gave us War Stories--rather than his demented fubar side. The battered American helicopter crew and the British special forces they pick up along the way are convincingly plausible.

This helps to sell the sense of disbelief, of unreality, when they encounter the Stitched. Based on this volume, the series deserves a lot more love than it has gotten.
----------------------------------
Update: After reading v2 and v3 I get why this series didn't make much of a mark. Those are sooo much worse than the very good first volume.

[Sean Goh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gory war zombies. Characters hard to tell apart, but story is quite gripping.

[Alex Sarll]

Mike Wolfer seems to have a niche at Avatar, scripting and then drawing stories based on ideas by bigger names - often Warren Ellis, but here Garth Ennis. However, he was either working from a pretty detailed outline, or just a bloody good ventriloquist, because this has the authentic Ennis tang, mingling his horror and war interests as a US chopper crew and an SAS team, stranded in Afghanistan, run into a particularly gruesome variant of zombie and the bastards behind them. Duty, bravery, black humour, the legacy of empire - if you didn't look at the credits, you'd never guess it wasn't an Ennis script. "And the wrath we will bring down upon this charming locale will make God's vengeance look like the tantrum of a child."

[CAW · Rating 4 out of 5]

An utterly unpretentious gore comic that somehow manages not only to be serious and treat war and women with due respect, but covers a swathe of complex issues, as much character development and depth as can be fitted in between the spraying guts, and genuinely creepy zombies, which are what earns this the Fourth Star of Wow.

If you think zombies have been done to (un/re/whatever)death, liked Dog Soldiers, or would really like to see female action protagonists who aren't SFCs or male parts drawn with boobs, this is one to look out for. Coarse and vulgar language to be expected, naturally.

[Albert Yates · Rating 5 out of 5]

when I picked up this book I wasn't sure what to expect. after reading Garth's Crossed series I knew I would be in for plenty of violence and interesting characters. what I didn't expect was to find myself engrossed with the back story wondering where these creatures and their masters came from. Garth spun an amazing tale about survivors of a crash and turns it into a story of survival and mystery against am unknown enemy.

looking forward to reading the second part of the series.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed this take on war zombies - A bit "Vampires on the Western Front" (2000AD), a bit temple of doom, a bit buddy war story.

Nothing startlingly new but well told story wise, but I really liked the very clean art work.

I see that Ennis did not write the second volume, which could go very bad (e.g. Crossed later volumes) with writers not getting the mix of grim humour and gore. However with Wolfer still on the art work I am likely to give it a go.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This trade collects the first 7 issues of Garth Ennis' 'Stiched' series - a relatively straightforward story of US/British forces surviving martial and supernatural elements out in the Afghan boonies. Gore factor is high with this one and rendered even more vividly through Mike Wolfer's intricate artistry.

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really good, mr. Ennis shows his incredibly talent to craft a story that is incredibly aggressively violent and still has touching bits. Even Wolfer's art is developing nicely. Good stuff.

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man this was fun! A really new and unique horror idea that's both scary and timely? Rare.

[Alex Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Garth Ennis books usually, but with his books I find, there’s a point, where the excessive violence, swearing and sex scenes gets a bit stale and trying too hard to be edgy. I really like The Boys, I do, but after the 20th violent, orgy scene, it can just become eye rolling rather than shocking. Here though, in Stitched, I don’t think the gore (and it is a bit gory), violence (it is a bit) and swearing (there’s a lot) I don’t think it got to that level where it became too much and attention seeking. Instead it was a good action horror comic, that seemed like it should have been a decent zombie film from the late 2000s zombie craze (even though this was released in 2012). And it’s adapted from his movie script he did as a short film.

A US army helicopter goes down in Afghanistan. Stranded with no radio, the crew of the pilot, co-pilot, interpreter and are in a desperate situation. Lost, pilot injured and more then likely Taliban closing in. As they try to get some handle on the situation they discover a group of Taliban ripped to shreds. Then they are attacked by a gathering of hooded figures that seem impervious to bullets, even when limbs and heads are blown apart. Only by the timely arrival of the SAS team, their mission was to collect, is the attack thwarted. The surviving SAS team and helicopter crew discover that these hooded figures are essentially dead, with their eyes, ears and mouths sewn shut, that are controlled by mysterious figures dressed in black robes, swirling cans filled with stones that somehow direct these stitched. And only by killing these, are the stitched stopped. Now, they must try to escape, with little ammunition, no radio and with wounded members, against an unkillable force while deep in Taliban territory.

I can see this was meant to be a film (there was a short film that was made, but it didn't get much attention I think). It just gave off that feel about it. An alternate take on what is essentially a type of zombie story, it wasn't too bad. The explanation is clear on how it kind of works, but it never really gives a full history or who the robbed figures are or what their motivations are. I think if the story was just secret cult in the hills of Afghanistan controls zombies through magic and were killing invaders would have probably worked better, than having a whole storyline about people trafficking linked to it. Keeping it simple might have made it that bit tighter and kept more of the tension.

The pacing, the look and the type of characters seem like the characters from a military action zombie film; the tough as nails woman co-pilot, the supportive pilot, the naïve blonde interpreter, the cool-headed British officer, the working-class foul-mouthed squaddies; all classic (stereotypical?) characters. They weren't bad by any stretch, but as cliché as they come they fail to make a lasting impression.

The art was good, if like parts of the story, not outstanding. The style seems similar to other books like this.

I'm used to books by Gary Ennis being a bit edge lord, you know, excessive swearing and gratuitous violence. Here, while there's swearing, and chunks of gore flying over the place as the Stitched rip people apart, it seems to be toned down to his usually mature rated stuff. I think this helped, I’m not sure why, for the story. Maybe when it's too over the top, I can take away some of the story aspects, so here, you stayed more invested. The dialogue fits in with the same as the characters; good but clichéd. Apparently, there’s supposed to be a lot of real world issues raised, but other than a war in Afghanistan and human trafficking, I’d say not really, and these aren't really looking at the causes and effects of either of these, just other than the setting (which could be any warzone) and that human trafficking exists and is terrible.

This is part of a series, but only Garth Ennis wrote this one. Would I have read this without his name on? Yes; it was at my library, so free, and a military horror story with zombies, so that's my thing. Would I read the sequels? If they was at my library then yes, but with Ennis' name on the cover, I would be less excited, as his is the name that you are drawn to. As a zombie story with something a little different, this is fine. Not earth shattering, but as an easy, no frills zombie story is with a read.

[OmniBen · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review) 2.5/5
This is one title that started out somewhat promisingly, although despite an interesting and somewhat original premise, and the potential it offered, the continual build up of inconsistencies, plot holes and some fairly flat characters and bland writing so fit to bury this title deep into the mediocre basket, for me. It really isn't right to have Ennis' name front and centre on this title. Supposedly he had the initial idea for this series, although turned writing duties over to Mike Wolfer, who is a far more competent artist than a writer, at least on the evidence presented here, anyway. I'm sure most people who purchase this title would have done so for the Ennis name on the cover, but there seems little on offer here to think that Ennis had anything to do with it. Not that Ennis isn't capable of turning out some bang average work, because he is. It's just that those rather famous Ennisism's are nowhere to be seen. No that the title succeeds or fails for the lack of them. It's just pretty clear he had little to do with this.
Pointing out some of the rather glaring failures of this book regarding believability and narrative consistency would take us into spoiler territory, which I do not wish to do. So you can either take my word for it or not that there are a great number of immersions breakers littered throughout this story. In fact, nothing the characters did throughout the entire arc of this story made sense. But hey, the plot had to happen, so away they went. By the final page, I was confused and frustrated. And all the reasonably cool Wolfer gory art couldn't put a smile back on my face, such was the irritation at the sub par writing on display. It really isn't that hard to have a story featuring supernatural entities make sense within the defined characteristics of reality as the reader understands it. This story took no time whatsoever to try and ground this in anything approaching logic or reality. Leaving me little choice but to advise anyone reading this to avoid this title. 2.5/5


OmniBen.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ancient evils of the world, like the ancient religions, all go back to the Middle East region. Stitched is a zombie/mummy/black magic hybrid that is different enough from the glut of zombie comics on the racks to attract my attention. Like all Avatar Press books, it has an emphasis on gore and over the top violence coupled with beautiful artwork. All ages appropriate it is not.

Using the war on terror and military excursions in the Middle East as a backdrop, the story deals with a US rescue mission crashing in the desert due to faulty equipment. They meet up with the British Army battalion that they are supposed to rescue and stumble across the Stitches, a living dead mummy obedient to a rattling sound. Yes, you read that correctly. Taliban controlled living mummies whose movements are controlled by a pebble rattling in a tin can, spun around on a chain. They are motionless statues without the rattling sound. The method used to make the living into these mindless slaves is pouring some black tar stuff into their mouth and sewing all of their orifices shut. This traps the soul in the body and makes them alive enough to move but not enough to resist.

This is a good read but not a great read. I liked it well enough to buy the Vol. 2 hardcover whenever it comes out. If you like the gruesome shit that Avatar releases like Crossed, Caligula, etc., then this should be right up your alley. If you have never tried an Avatar Press title, then what are you waiting for?

Finally! Avatar Press always releases 3 versions of every collected editions: a trade paperback, a standard edition hardcover, and signed and limited hardcover. I always go for the “standard consumer edition” hardcover, which always seems to get the lamest of the three covers offered. They gave this version the coolest cover for once. This cover image on Goodreads lacks some of the trade dress of the physical release.

[Vipul Patel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another Garth Ennis Drama

World might go ga ga over Garth Ennis' talent, and he is talented, but still he is biggest spoiler for good stories as author. His ideas for comic as originator are very interesting but he should be restricted to just ideas and should hand over to someone else once he pitch his ideas. Garth Ennis has tendency to lapse into too much drama. His idea of comic story follows the pattern of dull dialogs followed by much duller morality concepts that were explained via many more dialogs and then little part of action that felt muted out due to previous two chapters of world building and anticipation of action.
"The Boys" is utterly bad, your typical "on-your-face" soap tv drama (just a bit more adult). I loved his Crossed which was at least bearable due to no-bar brilliant art of Jacen Barrows. But again, after first volume of Crossed, other others flourished the Crossed world much more efficiently than what Garth Ennis had done.
And with that thought I started Stitched series. Premise was good. I was hoping for something in line of Crossed (may be something that even cross the line of Crossed) but first volume was dud as a dead stone. And again I felt that Ennis had hold this back to show off his knowledge of war. There were too many dull moments here. I would say real action happen only in last chapter. Mike wolfer's art is hit and miss but may be he didn't have much scope to shine with so much talking going on. Backdrop of Afghanistan war was superb launching pad with something sinister than real enemies mixed in. It was inflammable mix that could have been real fun-blast. But as usual Garth Ennis is too much pacifist and kept readers out of its blast radius.
I hope that Stitched also flourishes out of Ennis' hold with second volume.

[Jennifer Juffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what I was expecting.
This book definitely gave me something to think about beyond the typical horror in the mountains/hills slasher motif.
I despise inadvertent spoilers, so I'll I'm going to say is if you enjoy the writing of Garth Ennis, you'll probably enjoy the book.
Is it one of his best?
No.
But, as always, Ennis puts a lot of thought in his work that isn't always obvious.
Stitched is definitely is one of those books.

I am kinda curious to read Stitched 2. Totally different book, written by a completely different author and artist. However, it does give more of a background into this book.

I'm curious to know what it is to be "Stitched".
The next weapon of mass destruction, according to this book, perhaps? lol

[Chen-Wei Cheong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not for children or kids, this story is rooted in human desperation, for what do you turn to when you don't have technology or anything else to help you fight a war - magic, and you would use the blackest of magic for enslavement and revenge.
In this first volume, you find out how the stitches are created, but you don't really know the root of the black magic, which are explained in later volumes.
There was a large degree of gore, something you can only see in comics and animation, as we are shown how the stitches fight battles, tear apart limbs and pulling out innards through their mouth, to kill their prey, all while at the behest of their masters controlling them.
Highly recommended, as a supernatural horror genre type of story.

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 1 out of 5]

La collaudata coppia Ennis Wolfer ci mostra un nuovo incubo: nel teatro della guerra ai talebani, una squadra di soldati si trova di fronte a esseri inarrestabili ricavati da gente morta e mossi da barattoli contenenti pietre. Peccato che la storia sia gestita in maniera davvero svogliata, con le reazioni che sono, francamente, tutte sbagliate e troppo "americanizzate". Da non prendere, nemmeno per i completisti di Ennis.

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 2 out of 5]

La expansión a formato cómic de un cortometraje del propio Ennis. Es una historia bélica que no sorprende mucho salvo por la inquietante amenaza que hace mención el título. Es un endiablado pasatiempo.

[Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creepy story. Great art if you're a fan of graphic horror. I also appreciated that Vol 1 ends with the conclusion of the narrative arc, not a cliffhanger.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The set-up is bonkers, but if you just give in to it and ride along, the story is quite entertaining, and leaves open an interesting possibility for a follow on series.

[Zedsdead · Rating 4 out of 5]

An American Blackhawk crashes in the mountains of Afghanistan. The surviving crew members are set upon by human corpses with stitched orifices, which are being driven by robed men swinging cans full of pebbles. The corpses freeze in place whenever the cans stop rattling.

An unusual Ennis title, in my experience, in that it replaces his standard-issue demented shenanigans with straight (but extreme) creepiness. It's effective horror.

Stitched sprints out the gate, opening in mid-helicopter crash. Ennis does a reasonably good job building characters--no redshirts here--then isolates them and ramps up the tension. Wolfer's art serves the story well; the stitches are utterly gruesome, terrifying, and I could almost hear the tnnk...tink... of the tin cans that meant something awful was about to happen.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

well, this turned out to be a dissapointment.

First, the movie... around 30 minutes of bad acting, bad directing, bad editing, really bad monster make-up! over-all badness... and even though over-all badness can sometimes be a good thing, in this case, well it just wasn't.

The comic... slightly better than the movie as there wasn't any axx-ting involved. Decent art... but then again... pretty much the regular sort of art we've gotten accustomed to lately.
Don't get me wrong, I like my zombie comic as much as the next guy... but at a certain point, the gore simply turns into red coloring and ceases to have the desired effect.

Ah well, I bought it, I read it, I rated it, I reviewed it, time to move on.

[PJ Ebbrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe marked a bit high, but Garth Ennis is willing to hark back to pre-Mavel days in the UK with its several war comics. Using a mixture of both modern horror and war stories. Intrigued to find out more.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Effing bloody good. Horror and politics in Afghanistan.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent art by Mike Wolfer as always. I prefer this military meets horror concept over Ennis' graphic Crossed series.

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good premise, but in the end completely unsatisfying.