Posted in: Comics | Tagged: aftershock, fantasy, frank tieri, knights, Medieval, oleg okunev, Pestilence, zombie

Pestilence #6 Review: The Church Created Zombies

The Fiat Lux are cornered by the undead eater hordes awakened by the Church. The only way out is discerning what the "Word of God" is that can quell the eaters. Unfortunately, they've already lost James to the Plague, and it seems like it won't be long before the rest of Fiat Lux are lost.

Okay, it is another zombie story, but this time it's Medieval. Plus, you can still write a good zombie story so long as it has something unique to make it stand out. This isn't done often enough, but Pestilence manages to stand out for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Fiat Lux is a lovable motely crew of sword-swinging and swearing knights. Geoffery is definitely my personal favorite, but Roderick is quite awesome as well.

Pestilence #6 honestly had me from the get-go with Roderick gorily butchering his way through eater hordes in a most spectacular fashion.

There are some problems, most of which come from some layouts and the art side of things.

There is one panel wherein Roderick is just a floating head. The panel is big enough for there to be a body or any other surroundings, but, nope, it's just Roderick and what looks like a barely-started background. It's actually pretty startling how something like that could have been overlooked before this thing was finished.

The plot points aren't the most original thing either. If you could guess the Christian artifact that saved the day, then you've at the very least heard of Monty Python or Arthurian legend in general. It's agnostic in its views on the Church, but a piece of fiction being about how terrible the Catholic Church was (and still is at times) isn't exactly he most original thing either.

Many of the panel scenes are a little hard to decipher. There is a sword fight towards the end which becomes visually confusing very quickly.

That being said, Olug Okunev's art is quite good. He knows how to play with the gore, and the visual design of the knights look very good. Rob Schwager's colorwork is appropriately bleak and disgusting looking. Between this and Animosity, Schwager is quite the amazing color artist.

Pestilence #6 is an intensely fun, fairly flawed romp. However, the good outweighs the bad by quite a bit. Frank Tieri, Eric Bromberg, Brandon Auman, Oleg Okunev, Rob Schwager, and company have made a really fun horror tale here. As such, this one gets a recommendation, and you should certainly check it out.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!