Chris Ryall

Stephen King has been an author who means a lot to me over the years. He writes a lot. Not all of it is good. Quite often his work is laced with varying levels of implicit and explicit bigotry and prejudice. This seems to be something he has shared with his son.

This is a comic adaptation of the novella, Throttle, by Hill and King, and, the story that inspired it, Duel by Richard Matheson. Both stories centre on conflict with a malevolent truck on the highway.

I haven't read either of the show more original stories, but in the excepts and adaptations, Matheson's Duel seems a much stronger and more original, in multiple ways, of the two.

Throttle follows a motorcycle club, The Tribe, complete with grinning skull wearing a war bonnet patch, following a bloody altercation and moving from the frying pan of that into the fire of being made roadkill by a big, mean truck. If you know Stephen King's work, you know he loves big, malevolent trucks and casual racism. I cannot understand why they chose to name the MC and describe their patch in this manner, beyond exoticism. I may be wrong, but does not appear to be a Native American MC naming themselves within the story in this manner, as with the Hispanic MC, The Mayans, originally from Sons of Anarchy. With his history of 'Indian burial ground' origins for a number of his horror stories and propensity for the 'Magical [Black person]' trope, I find it hard to see anything else.

It's an excuse for some carnage, which is fun enough, but the forced moral turn at the end and the framing story give this an oddly preachy vibe, so unbelievably out of step with the roadkill porn this honestly is. Maybe, it works better in the book, but the tonal dissonance is wild.

Duel is a more interesting narrative following the eponymous duel between a guy on his way to an interview on California and truck that takes exception to being overtaken. That's the while premise, but the focus on the protagonist's descent into despair and madness at their ordeal and the maintained anonymity of the truck driver add a level of horror and intrigue that is sorely lacking in Throttle.

Both stories have an interesting perspective on class, with who they focus on and their portrayal, especially considering the author's situations when these stories were written. By interesting, I really mean a kind of sneering, dehumanising, and othering of those of the lower classes and outside the law, again nothing new for King, while weight and respect is placed upon dedicated fathers and veterans.

Throttle is, quite frankly, some Boomer-arse shit, and Duel seeks like it would be interesting to read.

The art and direction for Throttle is very standard affair and not particularly interesting. Duel has a much more distinct design and layout, reflecting the degrading of sanity of the protagonist, which I appreciate.

This wasn't from me, but it was something to randomly pull from the library. show less

I think I actually enjoyed this graphic novel adaptation of Hill & King's Throttle more than the original story. The pacing and art are well done and add a lot to the story.

But, it's the followup story, Richard Matheson's Duel that is the absolute winner here. I was barely nine years old when the Steven Spielberg (who was an absolute unknown back then) directed television movie, Duel premiered on national television, Nov 13, 1971, a Saturday night. I had to get permission to watch it from my show more mother before my cousin came over to babysit me.

And even then, at nine years old, I knew I'd seen something special. I remember my cousin being quite upset that there had been no key moment where you found out exactly what the trucker's problem was with Mann, and you never ever found out who he was. Me, hell, I thought that was one of the coolest parts of the movie.

And that, I think, is the defining difference between the Hill/King story and the Matheson one. Hill & King give you that this is why he did it scene. Matheson doesn't. And his story is all the stronger for it.

For this edition, I wasn't as crazy about the art for the Duel story, but it still worked well enough.

Overall, definitely worth picking up. show less

Book Review - Zomnibus Volume 1 (Graphic Novel)

Zomnibus Volume 1 (Graphic Novel)
Shane McCarthy (Author), El Torres (Author), Chris Ryall (Author), Chris Bolton (Illustrator), Enrique Lopez Lorenzana (Illustrator), Yair Herrera (Illustrator), and Ashley Wood (Illustrator)
Trade Paperback
Publisher: IDW Publishing;
Publication Date: First Edition September 15, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-1600105272
380 pages

A zombthology of more zombie goodness (and a lot of bbbrrraaaiiinnneeesss…)

Stories include:

show more 1. Zombies!:Feast – Written by Shane McCarthy, Illustrated by Chris Bolton and Enrique Lopez Lorenzana
4 out of 5 brains

2. Zombies!:Eclipse of the Undead – Written by El Torres, Illustrated by Yair Herrera
4 out of 5 brains

3. Complete Zombies vs. Robots – Written by Chris Ryall, Illustrated by Ashley Wood*
5 out of 5 brains

I’ve often wondered why zombies are so vocal. What with all the “arrrggghhh’s” and “urrgghh’s” it’s almost as if their imminent approach came with a built-in early warning system for the non-ambling survivors. Wouldn’t zombies be infinitely scarier if they were absolutely silent and we couldn’t hear them coming? And I understand the whole putrefy thing. Hey look, Billy, I’ve got your nose… but wouldn’t rigor mortis set in eventually and turn them all into living pieces of non-shambling statuary? Or by 21st Century standards “works of art”? And really, who on earth would be frightened by half-a-zombie slowly crawling towards them? I can visualize gangs of post-apocalyptic teenage boys taunting two half-zombies to drag race. And zombies rising up out of the sewers (Dude, you smell like crap!) is so cliché. But I digress…

Seriously though, how can anyone not love a good zombie story?! That goes double for a shambling-undead graphic novel. And, in the stories found in Zomnibus Volume 1 no one gets out alive. Oh, shoot! Should I have said SPOILER there? On second thought, I can’t remember a zombie story when everyone got out alive and the three stories included in this brilliant anthology are no exception. (Should zombies be called spoilers? Hmmm…. You heard it here first.)

In Zombies!: Feast and Zombies!: Eclipse of the Undead we find familiar urban settings taken over by the flesh-eating undead. In the first story, a band of hardened convicts being relocated to a new prison by bus find out how tough it is in a new un-dead world and in the second story, a sword-wielding sensei cuts a path through a wall of zombies to save a few brave and honest souls. In both stories, the chance of survival is next to nil. Yet a flicker of hope keeps the narratives, and the characters, moving forward. Both accounts are beautifully drawn, darkly macabre, and tell very different, but entertaining, zombie infestation stories.

Complete Zombies vs. Robots is a murky and foreboding collection of stories that turn into a triple-threat apocalypse rather quickly. A zombie apocalypse, a robot apocalypse, AND nuclear war combine to create a truly horrific zombie-winter cautionary tale. The art work here is breathtaking and each panel is a total work of creative genius. Minimalistic in some panels, though effective, the scenes are always pleasing to the eye, even the gory, brain-splattering (payoff!) ones.

File with: The Walking Dead, Marvel Zombies, The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, World War Robot, Zombies vs. Robots, post-apocalyptic fiction, World War Z, zombies, and “hello, cruel worlds.” (And any other zombie book I’ve reviewed in the past six years.)

4 ½ out of 5 brains

The Alternative
Southeast Wisconsin show less

OK, the basic idea behind this graphic novel is that mad scientists accidentally bring a zombie plague back from the future (or maybe the past?), which wipes out humanity, leaving our robotic replacements behind to fight the shambling undead remnants of their creators. I am sure that it would be possible to create a serious, thoughtful, internally consistent story based on this weirdly intriguing premise. This... is not that story. I'm not entirely sure what this is, but it's full of pulpy show more action and nonsensical plot twists, and eventually, for some reason, there are Amazons. It's actually pretty entertaining, in a WTFish sort of way, with lots of fun, dark humor, but ultimately it's a bit too all over the place to feel satisfying. And the messy, murky artwork, as well as not being much to my taste, often made the action annoyingly difficult to follow. I don't remotely regret the hour and a half I spent reading it, but I can't quite imagine recommending it to anybody else. show less