Spoilers: Lost the TV show was about Purgatory. There. Now you know. “The Life After” #2 goes head first into this story and tells readers this IS Purgatory. Get used to it. Who is in this middle ground for the souls? You wouldn’t believe me. I can hardly believe it and I read the book! Read on and see what is going on in this original new series from Oni Press.
WRITTEN BY: Joshua Hale Fialkov
ART and COLORING BY: Gabo
PUBLISHER: Oni Press, Inc.
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: 20 August 2014
Reviewed By Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
If everyone around had committed something as tragic as suicide, would it lose its impact? Does it feel like prison if everyone is trapped together? Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov seems to give off that mood in this new series. Apparently even dogs can kill themselves and be trapped in limbo for it. It’s a fascinating idea on exploring this realm. I don’t know if it’s been explored before but this series is off to a very intriguing start. Regular guy Jude gets saved multiple times from multiple horrors by literary legend Ernest Hemingway. Yep. This book has all kinds of curve balls like everywhere.
Artist Gabo makes people killing themselves a very pedestrian thing in this middle world. Folks keep offing themselves in front of our lead characters. It looks odd which I think is the effect the creators are going for. Jude’s ability to help souls move on looks to be a major point to explore as the series progresses. Gabo’s mix of regular and surreal is a major help to such an ambitious story.
All of that plus the hook of “The complete history of creation in three pages!” has me intrigued enough to keep reading. This book is so out there, it’s worth your attention to see where it leads to next. Demons, aliens, dogs, management and upper management look to be interesting oddities to see in the coming months. Get into this book now and be ahead of the cool curve for once.