Comics
Review: ’68: Jungle Jim’ #3
Hard-hitting and unrelenting, ’68: Jungle Jim #3 unleashes a ton of bloody action upon its unsuspecting readers. Never boring, the narrative lays it on thick with a heavy dose of gore this month. If you’re a zombie fan, you will definitely get a kick out of the “’68” series.
WRITTEN BY: Mark Kidwell
ART BY: Jeff Zornow and Jay Fotos
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: June 5th, 2013
As the Vietnam War continues, the guilty and innocent are trapped in Hell with no chance of escape. With no adults around, a single schoolteacher must protect her students from the brutality of war. But, can she save the children while their village is being raided by an angry mob of guerillas? In the heart of the jungle, Jungle Jim carries an innocent orphan on his back. Never wanting to a parent, he now has to become a father figure to a grief-stricken little girl. How will Jungle Jim keep her alive while the tropical forest is overrun by zombies? And where the hell did that tiger run off too?
Writer Mark Kidwell vividly portrays characters who are feeling the pressure of jungle fever and the close proximity of death. As an entire village is ravaged by gunfire, the schoolteacher turns to religion to understand the horrors of war. Jungle Jim presents two sides of his personality when he wears and removes his gas mask. With the mask on, Jungle Jim is brutal and unforgiving as he pulls the trigger. His only mission is to bring death and never look back. But when his mask is off, Jungle Jim is compassionate towards the orphan and invests time in understanding her language.
The zombies, who were mindless and scattered before, are now following a leader. In his search for a fallen soldier, Jungle Jim never expected to find his comrade leading a horde of zombies. During his introduction, the infected solider is holding a zombie’s head as if it were a rifle. The undead solider throws the zombie’s head, like a knife, to kill his enemy. I’m definitely interested in seeing where Kidwell takes this bizarre action down the road.
Jeff Zornow’s grungy artwork visually captures the intensity of the jungle’s madness. When the school is attacked by the guerillas, the teacher ends up being tortured by them. The guerillas want to feed the teacher to their zombies. As she screams for her life, they shove her face near the zombie’s mouth. In an extreme close-up, Zornow illustrates the zombie licking the teacher’s cheek with his rotten tongue.
Whenever Jungle Jim hits the page, Zornow lets loose on the gore. In the very first panel, while Jungle Jim is swinging his bloody machete, there is still an eyeball attached to it. The tiger has a mouthful of zombie intestines as it snarls loudly at Jungle Jim. In an impressive panel, Zornow focuses on the serpent eating a rat in the foreground, while Jungle Jim and the orphan are leaving in the background.
“’68: Jungle Jim” #3 is such an entertaining visual experience that doesn’t disappoint. The “Jungle Jim” mini-series is about to reach its last issue. I can’t wait to see what happens in the conclusion.
4/5 Skulls
Reviewed by – Jorge Solis
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
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