The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks

Max Brooks' "Recorded Attacks" is a visual appendix to his "Zombie Survival Guide". In that book, references are made to previous outbreaks hundreds of years ago, and this collection of illustrated stories details some of those outbreaks, going as far back as 60,000 B.C. in Katanda, Central Africa through an archipelago discovered by the pirate Francis Drake in 1579 where natives took their sick to be given "eternal life" to a more modern account in Joshua Tree National Park in 1992. Brooks' tales are quite intriguing and entertaining, but what makes this graphic collection stand out are the grotesquely detailed creatures from illustrator Ibraim Roberson. His images of rotting, walking corpses with deep bite marks and entrails leaking show more from stomachs almost drip and ooze off the page. They're wonderfully creepy and make this one of the better zombie graphic collections on the market. show less

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recroded Attacks
Author: Max Brooks and ibraim Roberson
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published In: New York
Date: 2009
Pgs: 144

REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
The wars of survival that we are fighting against the zombie in the modern age are not the first plagues to sweep across Man. There have been recorded instances throughout history. They’re coming and they’re hungry. From the Stone Age to the Information Age, across African savannas, against Roman legions, and onboard sailing ships, civilizations have faced them. The darkness of today mirrors the past. The monster is rising. Shoot it in the head.

Genre:
Adventure
Alternate History
Apocalypse
Comics and graphic novels
End of the World
Fiction
Historical show more fiction
Horror
Science fiction
Zombies

Why this book:
Zombies plus Max Brooks equals me reading.
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The Feel:
Even with the differing format from novel to graphic novel, Brooks close and paranoid feel manages to communicate through Roberson’s excellent line drawings.

Favorite Scene:
When the caveman faces down the horde and discovers how to take down the rampaging dead and ends up as the subject of a cave painting showing the future viewer to fear the bite of the living dead.

Pacing:
The vignette stories are short and carry a pretty good punch. The pace is great.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The WW2 Japanese chapter and the USSR in the 60s chapter are too closely related to one another given the spread of the other stories in the book. Same stories could have been told with less direct connections, either that or had them be pieces of the same story instead of one after the other with a direct story connection.

Hmm Moments:
The “real” reason the ancient Egyptians removed the brains during their funerary rituals.

Hadrian’s Wall.

Are these conspiracy theories from a zombie plagued world? That would work since each fails to tell us where the disease came from, even though it is obviously the same disease. The modern world is necessary for it to become the rampant widespread disaster that it is in the modern zombie craze. The hordes couldn’t spread fast enough to devour everything. A modern interconnected world makes the disease spread faster.

Why isn’t there a screenplay?
Considering the little that WWZ had to do with Brook’s incredible book, I have no desire to see this translated.
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Last Page Sound:
Wish there was more.

Author Assessment:
I love Brooks and zombies.

Editorial Assessment:
My only quibble is regarding the WW2 Japan and USSR stories interconnectivity that I addressed elsewhere.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
glad I read it

Disposition of Book:
741.5973 BRO
Irving Public Library
South Campus
Irving, TX

Would recommend to:
genre fans
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ZSG: Recorded Attacks is a beautifully-crafted chronicle of how far back zombies have infiltrated human history. The black-and white illustrations manage to capture the horrendous moments without sickening my stomach too much (imagine if it was in full-color!), although sometimes it got a little graphic in terms of spewing entrails.

Max Brooks has really outdone himself - or maybe he simply gathered all those delicious zombie tales and spun them together into a graphic novel of epic proportions. Whatever it is, I really got a kick out of ZSG: Recorded Attacks and how clever some of these stories were (unless they're absolutely true, then how absolutely spine-tingling they were!).

Max Brooks seems to be the modern expert or aficionado on zombies. He wrote two other books on zombies as well. This short graphic novel does not follow the typical narrative arc. Instead, Brooks picks out many moments in history and paints the picture of what a zombie attack would look like during that time period. Due to the nature of the stories being told, the pictures are graphic in nature; this book is probably most suitable for upper grade levels, although mature middle school students might also be interested in it. From an imaginative perspective, Brooks conjures ideas and images that are quite impressive. I can see no curricular connections to this book, except that it may engage some reluctant readers.

Max Brook's newest installment of his zombie journalism series is a book of short stories in comic book form. This report is very enlightening, detailing the presence and outbreaks of the zombie virus throughout time. The narratives are arranged in chronological order, from 60,000 BC to AD 1992. The places of each incident are as diverse as the time periods, starting from Central Africa and ending in California. The important part of this text is how other cultures in different time periods reacted to and survived the zombie outbreak so we can learn from others' experiences when zombies attack our own cities.

I read this book in about a half an hour. This graphic novel is very fast read, but it packs a punch. It is indeed very graphic show more and not for the faint of heart. I don't think I've ever seen zombies drawn with such care and attention. Every sinew, bite, and bone is very detailed. The art is simply amazing. In my opinion, it might have been more powerful if it had been in color, but it's still enjoyable in black and white.

There is very light dialog and narrative, but the art shows you a lot of the story. A lot of narration isn't really necessary. It's a great way to utilize the form of a graphic novel. Each story has the same basic plot in that zombies attack and they must learn how to defeat them swiftly or face the same fate as their attackers. However, each had different characters and ways of dealing with them. I was impressed that so much can be told in a very short story. Each of the scenes were unique and evoked a different emotion. A couple made me laugh, but some gave me a sick, sinking feeling in my stomach. (I love when I get that feeling from something I'm reading.) Most of those moments were because of the derangement and cruelty of man in events in history more than the zombies. My favorite story is the one about Ancient Egypt and the possible reason behind their traditional treatment of the dead.

I would recommend reading The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z first, because this is a more of a supplementary text (and those two books are awesome), but I think it can still be enjoyed all by itself. I would recommend this to zombie fans with a high tolerance for gore. show less

3.5 Stars-

OK... I really loved [b:The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead|535441|The Zombie Survival Guide Complete Protection From the Living Dead|Max Brooks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266579500s/535441.jpg|818] & the audio performance of [b:World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War|8908|World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War|Max Brooks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165766703s/8908.jpg|817] and I have plans to read World War Z next month (since the audio is abridged... I know, I know! Blasphemy. Yes, but it's awesome still. It's the exception. Trust me. Just look at the cast list.) and so I thought that I would round out the Max Brooks trio on my bookcase and pick this up.

I enjoyed it show more for the most part, and I think that the artwork was great. I liked the stark simplicity of the stories regarding each historical attack, but there were times when I wished for a little explanation of what we were seeing in the frame and how it related to other frames, etc. These are just pen and ink drawings, and sometimes I felt that a little explanation or context ("Meanwhile, overhead...", etc) would connect the imagery into a cohesive "story". It wouldn't have taken very much, but I felt it would have benefited from those small additions.

Regarding the artwork, this really is my favorite style - sketchy, not overly-processed drawings. I loved one scene showing hordes coming from afar, and they were just the barest subtle outline of a shape - but it gets the point across. I love that. But I do have one complaint - and this is really why I can't give this a higher rating. This is regarding the inconsistent way newly-turned zombies were depicted.

I get that with this 90% wordless medium, the artist would want to differentiate between swarthy, dirty, rugged menfolk and the undead, and so would take a little liberty. The easiest way to do that is to "monsterize" the zombies. I'd have been OK with that if ALL of the zombies were shown that way, and if that fit in with Brooks' canon, but they weren't and it doesn't. Part of the danger of the zombie virus is that it turns people and those around them don't yet recognize the danger because other than a bite, they look perfectly normal.

So there is one part where a woman's body is found bound and frozen, and some men take her inside, where she thaws out. The men are baffled, because she should be dead, but isn't. Then she starts nomming one of them and they kill her for good. The whole time, she looked normal, if a little deranged. Certainly NOT rotting or ragged. But the man that she bit comes back looking like he clawed his way out of a shallow grave after spending a couple months decomposing in the summer heat. It was just really inconsistent and slightly aggravating.

Otherwise, I really liked this little book. I don't regret the purchase, and would definitely recommend it for those who like gory zombie graphic novels, because it was that. I'm just... kinda finicky about artwork. I don't apologize for that, dammit!


...I'm sorry! O_o show less

As usual, Max Brooks killed it with the zombie lore! The 'accounts' were brutal and some were down right gruesome. There was that slight comedic air to them, but man this was dark. The art work is fantastic. I found myself just staring at it for long periods, soaking it in. The art told more of the story that the text.

I really enjoyed it.