The Life After Volume 1 makes storytelling look easy yet challenging, simple yet complex and beautiful and ghastly all at the same time. Being in Purgatory for suicides and a handkerchief are what start us off on the truly bizarre voyage through the after-life…and that’s when things get weirder and weirder in all the best ways possible.
WRITTEN BY: Joshua Hale Fialkov
ART and COLORING BY: Gabo
PUBLISHER: Oni Press, Inc.
PRICE: $9.99
Jude, the would-be hero, Ernest Hemingway, a dog named Gertie and the lady Nettie take readers on a journey through the bureaucratic hereafter. Breaking free of the monotonous repetition is what gets Jude noticed by the higher-ups, and that’s not a good thing. One should stick to the program, such as it is, and not cause any ripples in the system. Thankfully, suicide (and too much mercury in your blood) gives Jude someone to fight alongside: The Ernest Hemingway. Sound wonky? It is and it’s fantastically captivating. The utter mystery and not knowing what will happen next is what makes this such an engrossing read.
This creative team of Joshua Hale Fialkov and Gabo have made this story unlike anything else. I hope that when this book gets re-packaged with bonus material down the line that readers can get a glimpse of the notes these two came up with to pitch this tale. The amount of detailed thinking and sheer hellish details poured into this book is something to behold. Artist Gabo’s depictions of both Heaven and Hell and their residents are truly distinctive and genuinely scary.
The Life After is indeed a scary place, no matter where you end up. Yet somehow, throughout this entire first volume, there still remains hope scattered here and there. Change is never easy, no matter what dimensional plane it happens upon. The creative minds behind this attempt to change the realms of the dead truly know how to make it all make sense. They also will entertain you completely all at once. Read this and enjoy the jump off the cliff like Hemingway does herein with a pipe in one hand, a pistol in the other and leaving no one behind.
RELEASE: 28 January 2015
Reviewed by: Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
Twitter: @mrbradysteele