Donny Grimm
There was once a time when comics had to abide by certain rules and regulations, like no nudity, drugs, blood, gore, smut, swearing, anything that might incite any small feeling of interest, communism, images of horror, images of happiness, or any images at all. It’s good to know that that particular rulebook had fucked right off, most prominently in the zombie mini-series known as Blackgas.
Blackgas, by Warren Ellis, begins on a small island where a young couple had incidentally just arrived. Not a day into their semi-pornographic shenanigans, an earthquake hits and splits a huge fissure into the face of the island and from within that fissure emerges , SURPRISE, black gas. Of course, this just screams inciting incident. The black gas turns everybody who breathes it in into mindless raving lunatics bent on killing and eating and, in one odd incident, fucking everyone, all the while still being able to register what they’re doing.
At this point the unknowledgeable couple are, of course, the only two that failed to hop on the gravy train to Raccoon City and are still human, having taken refuge in their small, air-tight, impenetrable, wooden cabin fortress. I’m not going to give away too much of the story though, but what I will say is this is some brutal shit. Warren Ellis throws morals out the window and depicts utter, pitiless, inhumane chaos. There are images of parents eating their children, children eating their parents, nurses eating babies, Uwe Boll pulling his head out of his ass and filming something good. Total chaos.
Blackgas has a little bit of everything a zombie lover likes, but it doesn’t do any of it particularly well. The series is unsatisfyingly short, the actual action is surprisingly boring, and the characters are as shallow as Michael Cera’s sperm count. If a comic wants to develop any sort of fan base, it has to have enough material to make people fans, not just keep them busy while they wait for their next issue of Rue Morgue to come in. As a final word, Blackgas is by no means bad, it just isn’t as epic as its trying to make itself out to be. If you need something to keep yourself occupied while you’re on the can, by all means buy the comics, but if you’re looking to get pulled into a mesmerizing zombie epic of horror and awe, you might want to look somewhere else.
Final Score: 2.5/5
-Donny Grimm
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