5 *****

When the original solicitations for the Dying and the Dead were released I was on the fence. I went back and forth a little bit but ultimately decided against pulling it. I decided to take a chance on it this week as I had another slow pull week. I am glad I did. The issue was $4.50 for around 60 pages. 60 pages makes this a thick comic book with a good amount of reading and art. Even at the more expensive price point this was a value buy and certainly worth the extra buck. This book will normally be $3.50 going forward.

The original solicitations were vague. I wasn’t 100% sure exactly what I was getting. A mystery or more of a fantasy? It’s a little bit of both but the tag line that stuck with me was “Indiana Jones with old people”. The premise is simple. Something was stolen and an organization wants it back. The person for the job is an old man with a dying wife. He is promised his wife’s cure if he will find the stolen object. The organization doing the hiring is a strange culture that lives underground and apparently doesn’t age.

There are a whole lot of pages here. There isn’t a whole lot of dialogue on any given page but the book never feels shorted because of the sheer amount of pages. This was a fantastic read and it does a very good job of laying the ground work but leaving enough questions to ensure my return. I shouldn’t have hesitated to add this to my pull. Hickman and Bodenhiem have a solid story here and one that just shot up on my most anticipated list.

I love the art style. This is a very well drawn book and there is a lot of detail in each panel. Bodenhiem should be proud of his work here. The only thing I don’t care for is the color scheme being used. They use very little color and very muted tones. It gives everything a very flat lifeless look that I don’t think gives the art its due. This is likely to be a personal preference because I’ve already seen it written by a couple of people that they liked the color choices.

This is a solid book and one that was added to my pull the very next day after reading the issue. This is a book with staying power and a great story that I’m really looking forward to. Do yourself a favor and track down issue number 1 before they’re all sold out.