Zombie Tramp vol. 3 #9 - Ongoing
Action Lab: Danger Zone
Writers: Dan Mendoza, Jason Martin
Pencilers: TMChu
Reviewer: Derrick T. Crow
Summary: She used to be Hollywood's hottest high priced call girl, until the bite of an undead john changed her into something deadly different! Now Janey Belle – the street walking dead with supernatural abilities and a copy of the infamous Necronomicon – roams the highways searching for answers as the... ZOMBIE TRAMP!
[SPOILERS!!]
Review: For the first time in this series' run (all the way since the original mini-series even) I finally ran into an issue I really didn't enjoy that much. And it's not because the concept wasn't great, it's not because I'm getting bored with it, or the characters are stale – no, all those are fine. It's just that the execution was atrocious, mostly in the art department. I'm so happy to have TMChu back on art duties, and yet there is full pages where he really drops the ball on what we're looking at. The story was solid up until the final few pages where things get very loose and begin to make little sense.
I like that the story is tackling the bath salts incidents from a few years ago, it makes so much sense for this kind of series and it makes for a lot of fun seeing people take drugs that end up turning them into zombies because those drugs are inherently linked to the Tramp herself. And all it took was for her to take a bath and for that bath to leave a crazy residue. I love it!
However the fun of the story is lost when several key moments are left unexplained or are flat out drawn wrong. There is a page where the Tramp sees a man presumebly being pulled to the side by an off-panel villain but later we find out he just passed out. The problem with this is that in said page the man looks like he is being pulled forcefully to the wayside and the Tramp never gives it a second thought. That really took me out of the story.
Another instance is later, near the end, when there is a live broadcast going on of a bath salt/zombie attack and the news anchor bellows that some people are wanting a “live host.” Well, what kind of live host? Are they talking about the zombie attacker to experiment on, the anchorwomen or a reporter to talk to? And its never clearly stated if they're scientists or some other unimportant people. The significance of this blunder is when a bunch of characters are staring at the screen and thinking to themselves “that's interesting,” and that sets us up for the next issue. What's interesting about it? I don't get it!
And finally the last big blunder is when we next see Tramp after she created the bath salt drug on accident, she's in a house with a baby – after just killing his parent – and there's no rhyme or reason she should be there. Did I miss a page? Did I miss a page with all these incidents I'm seeing occur in this issue? I don't know! And that's a big problem, or maybe I'm just blind and don't know it.
However, like I said before, I'm really happy to see TMChu back on art duties and I hope he can stick around for awhile. His style is just as great as ever, and I tihnk it fits this series just wonderfully. All his characters look great, especially Tramp – who is quite literally drop-dead sexxxy – and our guest character for the storyline; Vampblade, who doesn't get a lot of screen time this issue, but looks amazing nonetheless. Like wow, do these girls look good.
Mendoza and Martin are crafting a nice, fun little story, but their execution this issue was just way off from what I expect for this series. I am however still looking forward to the next issue, just like I do every issue. #zombietramp4ever
Final Score: 2 Bath Salt Zombies out of 5
Action Lab: Danger Zone
Writers: Dan Mendoza, Jason Martin
Pencilers: TMChu
Reviewer: Derrick T. Crow
Summary: She used to be Hollywood's hottest high priced call girl, until the bite of an undead john changed her into something deadly different! Now Janey Belle – the street walking dead with supernatural abilities and a copy of the infamous Necronomicon – roams the highways searching for answers as the... ZOMBIE TRAMP!
[SPOILERS!!]
Review: For the first time in this series' run (all the way since the original mini-series even) I finally ran into an issue I really didn't enjoy that much. And it's not because the concept wasn't great, it's not because I'm getting bored with it, or the characters are stale – no, all those are fine. It's just that the execution was atrocious, mostly in the art department. I'm so happy to have TMChu back on art duties, and yet there is full pages where he really drops the ball on what we're looking at. The story was solid up until the final few pages where things get very loose and begin to make little sense.
I like that the story is tackling the bath salts incidents from a few years ago, it makes so much sense for this kind of series and it makes for a lot of fun seeing people take drugs that end up turning them into zombies because those drugs are inherently linked to the Tramp herself. And all it took was for her to take a bath and for that bath to leave a crazy residue. I love it!
However the fun of the story is lost when several key moments are left unexplained or are flat out drawn wrong. There is a page where the Tramp sees a man presumebly being pulled to the side by an off-panel villain but later we find out he just passed out. The problem with this is that in said page the man looks like he is being pulled forcefully to the wayside and the Tramp never gives it a second thought. That really took me out of the story.
Another instance is later, near the end, when there is a live broadcast going on of a bath salt/zombie attack and the news anchor bellows that some people are wanting a “live host.” Well, what kind of live host? Are they talking about the zombie attacker to experiment on, the anchorwomen or a reporter to talk to? And its never clearly stated if they're scientists or some other unimportant people. The significance of this blunder is when a bunch of characters are staring at the screen and thinking to themselves “that's interesting,” and that sets us up for the next issue. What's interesting about it? I don't get it!
And finally the last big blunder is when we next see Tramp after she created the bath salt drug on accident, she's in a house with a baby – after just killing his parent – and there's no rhyme or reason she should be there. Did I miss a page? Did I miss a page with all these incidents I'm seeing occur in this issue? I don't know! And that's a big problem, or maybe I'm just blind and don't know it.
However, like I said before, I'm really happy to see TMChu back on art duties and I hope he can stick around for awhile. His style is just as great as ever, and I tihnk it fits this series just wonderfully. All his characters look great, especially Tramp – who is quite literally drop-dead sexxxy – and our guest character for the storyline; Vampblade, who doesn't get a lot of screen time this issue, but looks amazing nonetheless. Like wow, do these girls look good.
Mendoza and Martin are crafting a nice, fun little story, but their execution this issue was just way off from what I expect for this series. I am however still looking forward to the next issue, just like I do every issue. #zombietramp4ever
Final Score: 2 Bath Salt Zombies out of 5