Every once in a while, as the mood strikes me, I like to indulge in those titles that are a bit odd . . . a bit different . . . a bit bizarre . . . and a bit freaky. These are books that don't always get a lot of press, and which rarely benefit from any prominent retail shelf space.
They're often an underground of sort of literature, best shared through guilty whispers, and often with embarrassed grins. These are our WTF Friday reads!
They're often an underground of sort of literature, best shared through guilty whispers, and often with embarrassed grins. These are our WTF Friday reads!
It's been a long time since I was seriously into comic books, but a title like Lesbian Zombies from Outer Space just sort of catches your eye. The covers looked perfectly campy, with a nice mixture of sex and gore, and the first three issues happened to be available for free . . . so I said WTF and snatched them up.Written by Jave Galt-Miller and illustrated by Wayne A. Brown, the start to this miniseries (there are 7 issues planned) is actually a pretty good read. The whole thing has a definite Evil Dead/Return of the Living Dead feel to it, right from the deadpan black humor to the over-the-top buckets of gore. Literally dripping with satire, it's all very tongue-in-cheek, skewering adolescent fantasies and religious/social prejudices at the same time. Every time you think the story might have potentially crossed a line, somebody within it makes a joke or a dumb comment that slaps you upside the head with the satire stick.
The basic premise is simple - hot alien chick crashes to Earth, imbuing our women with an insatiable lust for one another, and infecting them with an equally insatiable hunger for a certain dangly bit of male anatomy. Yes, pretty much every joke (or complaint) you can come up with is exploited here, not the least of which is the irony of lesbian zombies desperate to chew off some manhood. Ace is the hero, deliberately evoking the image of Ash on more than one occasion, while Gwen is a formidable character on her own. There are, of course, men dumb enough to be sucked in by the allure of girl-on-girl action, and they pay for it in the worst way. There is even a running gag about Gwen being an honest-to-gosh real lesbian, who has somehow resisted the infection, and it leads to some of the funniest banter between her and Ace in the series.
The third issue treads a bit more into Walking Dead territory, with the town barricading themselves inside a church, and then capturing one of the zombies for an exorcism. The corny exorcise/exercise gag is play to the hilt, but somehow it actually works. Of course, you can't have a story like this without the nuns getting naughty, with all the infectious mayhem that leads to, and it's exactly as inappropriate as you might fear (or hope). There's also a very funny, deliberately ironic plotline about the world's salvation being found in a series of cheesy 80s sci-fi porn videos . . . if only Ace can find them.In terms of quality, these comics are a professional production, backed by some very successful Kickstarter campaigns. Don't let the cheesiness of the title fool you. The artwork is top-notch, the coloring is fantastic, the writing is really clever, and the dialogue is spot on. There's actually more blood than there is nudity, but that nudity is balanced between the tastefully obstructed and the cheesily exploited. I don't know where the final four issues will take things, but I'm not going to be waiting for more freebies to find out.
Kindle Edition
Issues #1 - Published July 24th 2016 by Big Things Productions
Issues #2 - Published July 24th 2016 by Big Things Productions
Issues #3 - Published August 7th 2016 by Big Things Productions
not that sure is a twist indeed :)
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