So I Read Daybreak

A 250 word (or less) review of the daybreak graphic novel
By Brian Ralph, Drawn and Quarterly

The zombie horror subgenre is pretty popular; it's veritable boom times for shambling corpses with a hankering for cerebrum. It's a genre defined by a few distinctly well-imagined stories that stand out from the legion of mediocre, unimaginative clones that dominate the landscape. Kind of like zombie survivors among the undead. Daybreak is a zombie comic. In it a one armed survivor and an unseen "you" band together out of a sense of common purpose to stay alive during the zombie apocalypse. Plot wise, Daybreak is zombies' greater hits: all the must have genre tropes are dusted off for our viewing pleasure. Which doesn't exactly give Daybreak the most original story. This shortcoming is rescued by the art. The comic is drawn in an old-school cartoon style that is tremendously inviting. In a zombie comic with some pretty brutal and bleak visuals this cartoony style creates an emotional tension that is deliciously creepy. Daybreak also makes really great use of perspective: it's drawn in a six-panel grid of very tight first-person views. This creates a profoundly claustrophobic, atmospheric, and, during action, chaotic feel to the comic. It also really draws the reader in: the unseen "you" character becomes you the reader. Daybreak is a simple zombie comic executed in a really interesting and creative way. Based on how much I was dragged into the Daybreak world and emotionally invested, I'd say the end result is very effective. Daybreak, therefore, is one of the worthwhile survivor comics of the zombie genre.

Word count: 250