28 Days Later: The Aftermath by Steve Niles

This short, 112-page-long graphic novel is a movie companion of sorts to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. It takes place behind the scenes of the creation and outbreak of the rage virus that permeates the story of the movies. Again, this was found in my perusal of the graphic novel section of the library.

The novel is set up in four distinct sections which focus on the Stages of the Rage virus: Development, Outbreak, Decimation, and Quarantine. Each section of the novel focuses on little vignettes of people who encounter the virus. If you have seen at least the first film (28 Days Later), you will be able to pick up on what is happening. If you haven’t seen the movies, it may honestly be a little confusing.

This was a really short graphic novel — though it says it is 112 pages, one whole section of that is the sort of action description of each panel and page of Stage 3: Decimation. This was a neat addition, but I only really skimmed it. The novel is really about 90 pages of continuous story.

"You're right... We should start testing on chimps."

There were two things I really enjoyed about reading The Aftermath. The first was the detailed description of how the  Rage virus was created (human error, of course) and the surrounding characters of the section. The second was the art style. It was dark and bloody, as seen in the picture of one of the creators of the virus. This fit the story, and was just really well done.

If there was one thing I didn’t really like about the novel, it would be that it seemed short, almost to the point of being brief. Although it does make a nice companion to the films, I wouldn’t say it was required reading for a fan by any means. There isn’t really a lot of character development, and the one character who carries through most of the Stages doesn’t matter in the end.ed to show the art, as there wasn’t much dialogue — some pages were almost completely made up of pictures.

This book was a short read — it only took me about an hour and a half to get through. It was enjoyable to learn a little bit more of the Rage virus and the events surrounding each stage of its progression. However, because it was so short and added only a little to the established story of the movies, I would only tentatively recommend reading it if you’re not a big fan.

 

 

 

Rage: After the Impact

After receiving quite a few graphic novels from one of my favorite publishers, Dark Horse Books, I chose to read and review Rage: After the Impact.

This is the first time I've read a graphic novel as an ebook. It was interesting, to say the least.

Rage: After the Impact is an introduction story to id Software’s game, RAGE. The story follows the brief beginnings of Dr. Elizabeth Cadence’s life after awakening from sleep in a cryogenic ark. A deadly meteor, Apophis, was headed for Earth, so the government took preemptive measures and saved the lives of many who would be necessary to rebuild humanity. Approximately 5,000,000 people were killed by the meteor. As Rage indicates, “They were the lucky ones.”

Once awakened from her cryo ark, Dr. Cadence is attacked by ‘Wastelanders’ and saved by The Authority, or the new form of government in this post-apocalyptic world. Once inside the scientific facility, she senses something amiss with the research that is being done on the mutants, the humans who have supposedly come into contact with feltrite, a substance from Apophis.

Arvid Nelson does a great job of building an interesting relationship between Drs Antonin Kvasir and Cadence. I am truly interested to see where Kvasir ends up. With his new outlook… he could go anywhere. Cadence, on the other hand, I see getting into a lot of trouble due to her gung-ho attitude.

Near the end of Rage: AtI, I was reminded of Serenity, a movie based on one of my favorite (one-season) shows, Firefly. I personally love being reminded that humans are often to blame for some of the bad things in this world, and that we have many faults, greed being a large one.

This was a fantastic snippet of what I imagine to be a great story line for a video game. I enjoyed this story, and can’t wait for the full novel, Rage, and the video game from id Software to experience more of this world.