In the near future Humanity reaches it’s very own kill screen. If anyone played an arcade game back in the 80’s / 90’s you’ll remember the phrase ‘kill screen’ with a flurry of frustration and horror – it’s when the game becomes unplayable due to massive errors appearing on the screen. It sucked. But luckily the comic doesn’t.

The Kill Screen is a vastly unique take on the inevitable decimation of mankind, but this time with 8-bit hell. When digital errors transcended into the ‘real’ world and infected people, the world fell apart.

Issue #1 introduces us to that world – two years after the “Kill Screen Event” – and follows survivor Jill as she wanders through the broken landscape of our digitally-buggered world. Needless to say, it’s pretty weird. The infected’s blood explodes in an 8-bit splatter and errors roll up their faces like a busted computer screen. “Error 404” was horrifying enough when it wasn’t trying to smash your face in…

Written by Mike Garley, with artwork by Josh Sherwell and letters by Mike Stock, The Kill Screen is a thoroughly enjoyable, very well made comic and – most importantly – startlingly original. The concept alone makes it worth checking out.

Special mention has to go to artist Josh Sherwell as the ‘computer errors’ are genuinely well created, to the point I thought my PDF copy had stalled (stupid swirling circle of dots!!). The 8-bit effects are excellent and it adds a new dimension that elevates the comic significantly.

For more info on The Kill Screen, including artwork and other work by Mike Garley, check out his website – http://mikegarley.com/the-kill-screen/

Issue #1 of The Kill Screen (titled ILOVEYOU) will be premiering at the MCM London Comic Con on the 24th of May and will cost £3.50 for 28 pages (which is roughly $6 for all you American folks out there). Worth it.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

First published: 2002

What would you do if you were the last man on the planet?

It’s one of those questions men have talked about at length, sat around a pub table, at home whilst gaming, at the dinner table, well, anywhere really. What would you actually do if you were the last man on the planet?

Y: The Last Man follows the story of Yorick Brown, a down on his luck escapologist who has this hypothetical question made a reality. He wakes up on July 17, 2002, to find that he is the last man on the planet. A plague has hit that has wiped out the Y chromosome, killing off every male species on the planet, save for Yorick, and his pet monkey Ampersand. The world is plunged onto chaos, as societies collapse, and the survivors are faced with the reality that, if an explanation and cure to this ‘plague’ is not discovered, humanity is doomed. Yorick realises his importance, and sets off to try and discover what caused this plague and see if he still has a place in the world.

That is essentially the premise of the comic, and it’s very hard not to get spoiler heavy by saying much more regarding the story, so I won’t. Because, in short, this is one of the best comics I’ve ever read.

Now I know what you you’re thinking. All the men on the planet are dead except him. It’s just poor little Yorick, and all the women on the planet? It would be a man’s dream come true surely? Initially you would think so, but Y: The Last Man does the genius thing of not making it about that at all. That’s the obvious plot line, but so seldom does it even come up throughout the entire series. That’s not to say it never comes up; it would be pretty ignorant to not add this story element; to look into the desires of men and women in such an extraordinary scenario. What’s so refreshing about this comic though, is that yes, he could go on a massive spree of bedding women left right and center, but he doesn’t. From the outset, Yorick has 2 goals. 1. Find out what caused this plague, and find out if he’s doomed to share the same fate as his species, and 2 get to the other side of the world and find the love of his life, Beth. This is what makes is such a great story and what makes Yorick a fantastic character. He could literally have anyone he wants, but he’s set on his goal and his girl, and nothing will move him from it.

Yorick is surrounded from start to finish by some fantastic supporting characters, including Agent 355, a woman sent to protect Yorick and aid him in finding out what caused the plague, and Doctor Allison Mann, a geneticist desperately seeking to find out what caused the plague and why Yorick survived. Yorick needs some serious protecting on his journey. He has to contend with newly formed military factions, governments, hardcore fanatics the ‘Daughters of the Amazon’ who believe that this plague was a deserved fate for the ‘oppressive species’, and hundreds of women that basically just want to jump his bones.

I don’t think anything I write will do Y: The Last Man justice. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of the 60 issues.. It’s funny in places, deep in others, it has scares, shocks, and some genuinely heart breaking moments. The end had me legitimately in tears. My only minor criticism is that some of the issues tend to be fillers that I felt didn’t really need to be there. Looking back though, as a complete story, they had their place in their own right, and so it’s forgivable.

Y: The Last Man is a beautifully written, stunningly drawn comic, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves comics, someone new to them, or anyone who likes a compelling story. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. It is a real story of trial over adversary, of a man who chose what was right, over what was easy.

So what are you waiting for? Go read it. You’ll be nothing short of amazed.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Peter Grant is just coming to the end of his two year probation as a constable with the Metropolitan police. Probies always get the shit jobs. So it’s no real surprise that he finds himself, on a cold rainy night in January, guarding the scene of a murder outside St Paul’s in Covent Garden. While his friend, WPC Leslie May, is off getting coffee, he is approached by an eye witness to the crime. This witness gives a graphic and accurate account of what transpired. The only problem is that this witness is the ghost of a man that died over a century ago. This isn’t going to be easy to explain to the brass.

Thus begins Peter’s journey into a London that he was completely oblivious to before now.

Ben Aaronovitch, the author, has written for TV and radio in his time, as well as a bunch of novels. Most notably he has worked on Dr Who (TV, radio and books) and Blakes’ 7 (radio plays). Rivers of London is his first foray into a world that is his creation, and he has created it well.

The book is written from the view of Peter, and a great deal of thought has obviously been put into the character and the style of the writing. It has an earthy quality and an honesty that made me completely believe that this was the narrative of a young policeman from a mixed race family, London born and bred. There is no pretention to draw you out of the world that he completely succeeds in creating. A ‘modernism’ (is that a word?) that brings it into the world of today. This is something that other authors often aim for, but sometimes fail to achieve with such conviction. However, this does mean that some of the imagery is not quite as poetic as it could be. But I see this as a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. I love colourful renditions of the images writers are portraying. But Peter is not a poet. This is a world seen through his eyes. It really worked for me.

It is a tale told through the eyes of a policeman. So, as such, it is a police investigation tale that strays into a world that is way outside of the realms of police reports. As a result, it is not a splatter book, nor is it a sinister, suspense tale. Yet it is both. Aaronovitch tells a tale which, seen through different eyes, could have easily been told by Clive Barker or James Herbert. But neither of them would have chosen Peter as their central character. So there are moments that are told more clinically than would be by other authors. But are no less shocking or disturbing, if one applies some thought and imagination to what you are being told.

I am truly impressed with the amount of research and accuracy that Aaronovitch has achieved with this book. His portrayal of the Metropolitan Police structure and operation is superb. I used to work for the Met Police Forensic Science labs. So many parts of this book made me think ‘Fuck yeah… that is so right!’ (Actual Policemen may disagree.)

Some may question whether this is truly a ‘horror’ book. And I would admit, it’s no Banks, Lumley or Hutson. But it is a foray into the worlds that we embrace, and it is a refreshing point of view to observe this foray from. It may not be filled with scares, gore or balls out nastiness. But it, in my opinion, completely achieves what it aims at. And as a result of this book, Mr Aaronovitch has made it onto my list of ‘Authors to keep an eye on for new works’. This list is not large.

Rivers of London is the first in a series. It is followed by Moon over Soho and Whispers Under Ground (to date).

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Anyway, the bit in Titanic where Leonardo DiCaprio slides off of the door or bit of wood or whatever it is and sinks down to his watery grave?  How much better would it have been if he’d leapt back up out of the water like Jason at the end of Friday the 13^th?  I mean, this is James Cameron!  He gave the world Aliens!  He can do jumps and scares, if he wants to!  What the hell is this soggy romance about?

So, Chris Pauls and Matt Solomon have given us Deck Z: The Titanic, a story which singularly fails to capitalise on the fact that there are dead and dying everywhere, and instead decides to shoehorn a tired old “oh, no, not a T-Virus-like-thing escaping into a confined space” story.  I’m not sure exactly why they looked at a genuine tragedy like the sinking of the RMS Titanic, in which at least 1,490 people were deaderised in a horrifying manner, and then proceed to just chuck some zombies in for cheap laughs and tittering. 

Is it just me that’s had enough of these shitty “Situation X + Monster Y” novels that have been gradually filling up the shelves since the comedy abortion of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies shambled its way into view?  It’s the laziest form of cut and paste horror writing, and – while it’s not Shaun Hutson levels of derivative – it is a rather feeble nonetheless.  

Anyway, there’s a scientist, named Theodor Weiss (magician’s tip: Never trust a guy with the surname ‘Weiss’), and he has this T-Virus knock-off, and it turns people into zombies.  The military want to use it as a weapon, and he tries to sneak it to America, aboard The Titanic.  Chaos ensues, people are bitten, some minor concessions towards pathos are made, and a bunch of mildly interesting characters try and escape from the sinking boat.  Along the way they learn to live, laugh, love, languish, liquorice and liger.  Probably.

Some of the characters are enjoyable.  Louise and Weiss, in particular, show the most humanity throughout, but the rest of the cast appear to be mere exercises in stiff upper lippedness and shooty-bang-death-killeration statistics.  The zombies aren’t especially scary, and while the action scenes are sometimes enjoyable, there’s never any real attachment or involvement for the reader in what’s happening.  I just couldn’t find myself able to care about what happened to most of them.  Probably not helped by the fact that I was already resigned to the fact that they were probably going to drown or freeze to death in any event. 

On the plus side, it’s very short.  On the down side, it’s very short (barely 220 pages).  Normally I don’t make a big deal of price, but…£9.99 for 200 pages?  Really?

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars