Zombies, crusaders, awesome artwork, and loads of gore - what more could you want? The story is fairly simple and the characters lean towards the threadbare, but it didn't ever bother me while I was reading. In fact, this was a real "page-turner" for most of the ride. This is thanks in large part to the artwork, which is gloriously violent and detailed (with some truly delightful full-page spreads). Interesting ideas, tense moments, great art, and a cliffhanger ending. I'd definitely recommend it, and I can't wait to see where the story goes next! ( )

Really cool premise and detail. Wasn’t my favorite form of art with the floating heads doing dialogue, but definitely glad I took the time to read it. Characters were cool and it kept from being preachy, which I normally avoid reading. ( )

Great artwork!!! Great concept behind it. But even as someone who can out curse a drunken sailor on shore leave, this had way too much gratuitous swearing for the setting. It made it a boring read instead of an interesting story. ( )

Wow, that was bad. I could have lived with the plot being lifted from a direct-to-video horror flick and the cheesy dialogue if nearly every woman in this graphic novel hadn't been nearly naked--even the zombies were topless!

Received via NetGalley. ( )

I'd almost rather have a zombie chew my nose off than read this again.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape and misogyny. This review contains spoilers.)

DNF at 75%.

The year is 1347, and the Black Death is sweeping through Eurasia. Sent to dispatch a rogue crusader in a distant kingdom, a regimen of the Church's army known as the Fiat Lux is summoned to the Vatican to rescue the Pope. Instead they are unwittingly drawn into a vast conspiracy involving zombies, religious dogma, and Jesus and Lucifer.

On the surface, Pestilence is a pretty cool idea: what if the Black Plague was actually a zombie outbreak? The plot line is surprisingly boring, though, and I only really cared about one character, who's killed off just as he becomes interesting.

Worse still is the dialogue. If I had a dollar for every time "cocksucker" or "cunt" makes an appearance, I could buy an entire case of Daiya cheese. (At the 5% case discount, yes, but still: that shit is expensive!) I don't have a problem with swearing, but here it's pathetically overdone, as if it was written by a couple of ten-year-old boys who just discovered the f-word. There's also some pretty gratuitous female nudity [side eye], as well as a full-page pillage-and-rape panel that's both wholly unnecessary and obnoxiously insensitive [lighting this book on fire].

And then there's the scene that made me throw in the towel (spoilers!). One of the characters is a woman who's passing as man so that she might serve in the Church's army. Bitten by zombie, with her and her comrades surrounded by a swarm, she sacrifices herself to save them. And, well, I'll just let the panels do the talking.

http://www.easyvegan.info/img/pestilence-volume-1-01.jpg
http://www.easyvegan.info/img/pestilence-volume-1-02.jpg"
http://www.easyvegan.info/img/pestilence-volume-1-03.jpg

Let me repeat that for emphasis:

http://www.easyvegan.info/img/pestilence-volume-1-03.jpg

So, in apologizing for being a sexist satchel of dicks, the sword that dude falls on is a disparaging term for women [headdesk].

I can only imagine that the author thought he was doing something "nice ... for the ladies" here, only to fail in the most epic way possible - and ruin the only redeeming part of this story for me in the process.

I wish I could get the hour I wasted on this book back. Failing that, a giant pot of liquid gold would suffice.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2018/02/13/pestilence-volume-1-by-frank-tieri-and-oleg... ( )