Every reader has a favorite genre. One of the greatest things about comics today is that there are as many genres in graphic novels as there are in any other literary medium, including some interesting sub-genres.

This week I’m talking about a genre that’s gotten a lot of attention in recently, and that’s the survival epic. Whether it’s caused by a natural disaster, an alien invasion, or some other form of apocalyptic event, survival epics are a fan favorite in movies, books, video games, and even television shows. If well done they depict humanity’s nature in its darkest moments, the kind that makes good people corrupt and bad people upstanding citizens. It’s a real twist on that age old question about the fundamental moral state of human beings. Are we fundamentally good or fundamentally evil?

There are a lot of great survival epic stories out there, but there are three that come to mind that I never tire of recommending. The first story is one most people are familiar with, whether it’s from the long-running comic series or the new television show on AMC. Of course I’m talking about Walking Dead.

Unfortunately there’s not much I can say about this series that hasn’t already been said. It’s an exceptional tale of horror and suspense. It lacks the cheap scares that I’m all too used to seeing in most modern horror stories, the kind where around every third corner you just know some knife-wielding maniac is laying in wait. Robert Kirkman builds the tension skillfully, crafting and warping his characters through desperation, terror and isolation, all the while stripping away the people that they were bit by bit. And the reader, who gets to see this transformation from the very beginning, they find themselves wondering just how far down the road these people will go before they cease to be people anymore. If that’s not good suspense, then I don’t know what is.

The second series that comes to mind is very similar in some respects. It’s called Crossed and it’s written by a master of the macabre, Garth Ennis.

The key distinction between Crossed and Walking Dead is small, but it makes all the difference. Instead of using zombies as the major antagonistic force, Ennis decided on a different route. In Ennis’ epic, instead of dying and coming back as a walking corpse, people start turning into psychopaths. Think an army of Jason Voorhees minus the mask with the addition of a deranged grin and a bloody cross that grows on their faces like gaping sores. These things are as smart as they are vicious and have an inhuman tolerance for pain. Instead of being walking shells, the Crossed are the embodiment of the evil within all human beings, which makes it all the more difficult for the survivors.

And finally, the third series that will always be a favorite is Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan.

Lacking as it is in monsters and mutants, it nonetheless shows a scenario in which roughly half of the world’s population was abruptly and inexplicably wiped out, namely the half bearing the Y chromosome. One guy, however, happens to survive, and no one on the planet has a clue why.

What makes Y the Last Man a different form of survival epic is the kind of opposition the main characters face. Instead of facing off against an exotic force like zombies, they find themselves up against other people doing anything to survive.

So there you go. Three stories, three tales of survival against incredible odds, and each will give you a slightly different take on what humanity would become if worse came to worse. That’s the beauty of post-apocalyptic survival stories; they can confirm your worst fears or strengthen your most altruistic beliefs. And the best thing is that these three are only the tip of a very massive iceberg. Even if you tread carefully, you never know what you might find.
-Brent

---

Both comments and pings are currently closed.