Josh Howard

Josh Howard’s Dead@17: Ultimate Edition collects the first four volumes of his saga, “Dead@17,” “Dead@17: Blood of Saints,” “Dead@17: Revolution,” and “Dead@17: The 13th Brother,” all of which Howard wrote and illustrated. The first story introduces Nara Kilday, who dies at the hands of a murderer when she’s seventeen only to revive shortly later. She reunites with her best friend Hazy Foss, and together with their friend, Elijah, and Noel, an agent of the Protectorate, they work to fight the undead and the demon Bolabogg.

In “Blood of Saints,” Nara and Hazy have difficulty adjusting to life with a constant supernatural threat. Meanwhile, a former classmate of theirs, Violet Grey, commits suicide after suffering Bolabogg’s torment. He resurrects her to become his new host on Earth. Violet kidnaps Hazy, whose torture Nara can psychically sense. Nara attempts to confront Violet, but finds that she’s already bonded with Bolabogg. In “Revolution,” Nara and Noel find themselves working with a group called “Heaven’s Militia,” led by another resurrected woman, Joan of Arc. Joan had attempted to assassinate a senator-turned-presidential candidate who was actually Bolabogg in disguise, but the demon survived the bullet and used his recovery to garner further support. While the previous volumes cribbed from Judeo-Christian mythology, “Revolution” relies on it to a far greater extent. It would seem a religious comic if not for the extensive near-nudity. Interestingly, “Revolution” also offers some commentary on the mid-2000s discourse surrounding the War on Terror, U.S. involvement in Iraq, and public displays of patriotism as well as early signs of the forthcoming Great Recession. This volume offers a sense of catharsis and conclusion, but it’s fairly undone with the next story.

The fourth story, “The 13th Brother,” focuses on the forces of darkness working to bring about the return of the titular Thirteenth Brother, a demon named Abbadon capable of bringing about hell on Earth. Asia Black survives what should have been a fatal car accident only to find her path crossed with Reverend Hendrick Strauss, who has figured out the meaning of the supernatural events in the previous three stories. Strauss has a demon held captive in his basement that he’s torturing for information. Later, when he meets Asia, he expects her to help fight the demon armies. It turns out she wasn’t fully resurrected, but merely served as a vessel for Nara’s spirit. Meanwhile, Hazy has been working as an exotic dancer in the wake of the events from “Revolution.” This story intensifies the religious elements of the narrative the farthest they’ve been in Dead@17, leading to some scenes that recall Frank Miller’s Holy Terror more than they do other supernatural fiction. After escaping the reverend, one of the servants of Abaddon says, “I’m fine, thanks to the mercy of the prophet – peace be upon him.” While nearly any phrase invoking their dark master would work in context, the choice of this particular line appears to contribute to the evangelical demonization of Muslims. Abaddon’s servants also appear darker-complected than non-demonic characters and one wears a keffiyeh and bandanna whose “demonic” text closely resembles a green crescent moon and star. This, coupled with the revelation that Elijah died as a result of a suicide bomber in the Middle East only adds to the Islamophobia of this story. Worse, the casual, unseen death of Elijah contributes very little to the narrative except to touch upon what was then the recent war in Iraq.

Howard’s art resembles Mike Mignola’s style from his Hellboy comics, while the tone of the first two stories recalls early Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. In its reliance on Judeo-Christian mythology, Dead@17 evokes the Vertigo Comics series Hellblazer starring John Constantine, though it doesn’t treat the material with the ironic detachment of Hellblazer. Howard mentioned being pissed off at “people who insert politics into their stories, music, and art” in an interview with The Comics Review on 7 February 2006, but his later statements show that he knew he was doing just that in Dead@17. In an interview with Broken Frontier on 27 April 2006, Howard stated that he “wanted to counter” the “almost always blasphemous” use of Jesus in comics. With this in mind, Howard’s portrayal of occult groups plays into the Satanic Panic tropes of the 1980s and 1990s and the increasingly religious nature of the narrative undercuts the generic supernatural story of the first two volumes as the work increasingly takes on the tone of religious propaganda.

I first learned of Howard’s work in Wizard Magazine’s 2005 Mega Move Spectacular, where the editors listed Dead@17 as the number one thing readers should know about indie comics in 2005. Wizard based that assessment on the first two storylines as “Revolution” was only appearing in print at the time the magazine went to press. In 2015, 6 years after this Ultimate Edition appeared, Howard published Dead@17: The Complete Collection, which contains all of the material in this book in addition to the last three volumes of the Dead@17 saga, “Afterbirth,” “Witch Queen,” and “The Blasphemy Throne.” Dead@17 was originally published by Viper Comics, with whom Howard had a productive working relationship, before switching to Image Comics, a larger independent publisher, to publish the three stories not included in this volume.… (plus d'informations)

So I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book right now. I bought it at Barnes and Nobles many years ago and then didn't read it right away b/c I suddenly realized it had a religious connotation to it wasn't in fact just a zombie story. I finally started reading it the other day and while it is a little religious it's not trying to push an agenda so I was able to kind of get into it, but then all of a sudden it stomped following it's main characters (Hazy, Nara and Elijah) and started following other characters (Asia & Davon) that felt much less likable. Then Hazy and Nara were suddenly brought back.

I'm mildly curious to see where it goes but not so curious that I feel willing to buy the next volume at this point. I'm honestly not sure that I am going to keep it.

While I did like the art style there was an awful lot of cheese cake here, which at certain points was just distracting from the story (seriously she's only wearing underwear and her t-shirt is totally ripped again....)… (plus d'informations)