iZombie by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred has always been one of those comics I looked at, picked up, paged through, and put it down. I adopted the “I’ll get around to that one later” mentality. I’m slowly starting to realize how much of a mistake I’ve been making.
The series follows Gwen Dylan, a grave digger who must eat a human brain in order for her to not lose her memories. This, in turn, gives her the memories and feelings of the human whose brain she last ingested. Gwen proceeds to fulfill the deceased brains' last requests, accompanied by her best friend Eleanor, a sassy ghost from the sixties. Along the way she meets vampires with paintball guns, hot mummies, and were-dogs with crushes on certain protagonists.
Now, the correct reaction after reading that last
paragraph is “Okay, I want to go read this now.” Yes, you do. You really do.
While the beginning of the story was slightly jumbled, with some plot points getting
a bit lost in the mire, and tangents were certainly… tangential, the most recent
issue begins to tie up all these loose ends and in turn, adds even more questions
as it answers others.
The action isn’t exactly the main focus of this series, but when it’s there, it's great. Mike Allred’s art fits the tone and story perfectly, as it’s both retro and modern while at the same time showing action in a really cool way. Roberson gives his characters a lot of time to grow on us, as the intro to this story and its characters is really only now beginning to wrap-up.
Enough about the series as a whole, this review is on issue #16. For those that have been following Gwen and her friends since day one, you have probably been itching for some answers and a bit of divulging of some of the storylines within. This issue certainly makes a lot of headway in answering those questions, especially in the area of the Dead Presidents. While that is basically the B story of the series, it was definitely on the forefront of my mind while reading. The issue felt like a season finale to me, with loose ends tying up and making way for new questions. It has a great ending, and luckily we don’t have to wait longer than a month for issue #17.
If you are at all interested in iZombie, now is the perfect time to start reading it as the meat of the story is just now kicking in. I would definitely recommend starting with issue #1, though, as this wacky cast of characters really deserves your time in getting to know them better.