Revival #1 Review
Revival #1
Written by Tim Seeley
Art by Mike Norton
Cover by Jenny Frison
Review by Bobby Shortle
A creative writing essay on yellow legal pad appears over images of a snowy Wisconsin town. These images are the kind of quaint americana that, to many of us, only exists in the memories of our elders or in Norman Rockwell paintings. Yes, all seems well in the quiet hamlet of Walisau, but then, as quickly as that idealic setting materializes, it transforms into a nightmare of bloody hooves. This is Revival#1, the new ongoing series by Tim Seeley, and it’s one of the most interesting books of the year.
What’s happened in Walisau, Wisconsin to create such a stir? Well, you see, there was one day where the dead people in town came back to life. They aren’t zombies or mindless ghouls, and in fact they seem pretty much like the people they were before, none the less there are folks living who should have died. So now the government has cut the community off from the rest of society, and it’s up to officer Dana Cypress to make sure things stay civilized. But, when she is called to the scene of a murder it becomes quite clear that life isn’t going back to normal anytime soon.
A crucial element in setting up a rich mystery is how you build the world your characters inhabit, some of the best thrillers, stories like Twin Peaks, Fargo,and It, all share one important element, an amazing sense of place. Revival #1, like the tales mentioned, creates its sense of bizarre realism by leveraging what is commonly thought of as the safest part of American culture, the small town. Writer Tim Seeley uses the most treasured elements of these little communities, the close knit relationships, the rural landscapes and the self sufficiency, and turns them into the very things that threaten to destroy the inhabitants. His “farm noir”, after only one issue, feels like a worthy addition to this pantheon of stories.
The beautiful thing about Revival #1 though, is not that it reminds me of these other wonderful stories, but that it also manages to blaze a trail all its own. After all you would never hear Marge Gunderson talking about the dying Zorse population – that’s a combination of a zebra and a horse – and even in David Lynch’s utterly bizarre Twin Peaks, you wouldn’t see a possessed elderly woman swing a sickle like some sort of geriatric Grim Reaper. These outlandish and unique occurrences only serve to make this once sleepy Wisconsin township feel all the more like a living breathing place. But let’s face it, no small town would feel 100% authentic without some good old dysfunctional family dynamics to play with and Revival has those right at its center.
Tim Seeley is working in broad strokes for this first issue, the stern disapproving father, the daughter who wants approval and Daddy’s little girl gone astray, are not new ideas, but he uses this well worn territory to immediately engage us with characters who get very little page time. We even know scant information about our lead Dana, but what we do know – mother, hard working cop and loyal daughter – makes her instantly sympathetic. It’s a classic, “in over her head” story and it works perfectly.
VERDICT
Buy It – If you like tantalizing mystery, dysfunctional family dynamics and zebra/horse hybrids then Revival #1 is the book for you. In just one issue writer Tim Seeley has crafted a fascinating beginning to the tale of Walisau, Wisconsin’s resurrected residents and laid the groundwork for a twisting and disturbing detective thriller.
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Picked this up after reading the verdict. I’m not a big fan of the traditional “undead/zombie” stories, so this seems interesting and am looking forward to the next issue.
Thanks for bringing this comic to my attention, Bobby!
Yeah, I love that it doesn’t just fit into that much used “zombie” category. Has much more of an Exorcist or Stigmata feel to those “revivers”
Loved this first issue. That little poem dispersed over the first six panels is a beautiful little meditation on human evolution in the face of God. The opening shots of a seemingly uninhabited snow covered countryside and town set the scene perfectly. We are in rural America but with the demise of that Zorse, we realize there is ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’.
I only mention it because that last scene with the scythe harkens back to the poem we read at the beginning – “away from the reach of his scythe”
The radio debate that takes place whilst Dana Cypress gets ready for work informs us that the outside world is well aware of these strange goings on and is a quite realistic portrayal of how a phone-in show might be if it was concerned with such an unrealistic event.
The family portraits on the wall are an indication into the family dynamic which we get introduced to later – you’ll notice the one of Dana standing behind her father with the younger sister po-faced in the front.
The little reveal we get when Dana’s son Cooper follows that mysterious sound into the woods infers that maybe the goings on are not super-natural but simply beyond our own human comprehension – maybe its because of certain ‘visitors’.
When Dana gets the assignment from her father to investigate the Zorse incident we fall upon some of the locals arguing with a bit of xenophobia thrown in – which is again (unfortunately) an all too human response to difficult and stressful times. Fear of ‘the other’, only this time we know they don’t yet know the real ‘others’ they should be fearing.
The scene in the barn is pretty unnerving to say the least. With the ‘revived’ grandma praying on her knees whilst pulling her teeth out. Then the slaughter that follows is pretty gruesome but as with the rest of the book, the art is fantastic and they don’t pull any punches when it comes to the injuries they depict.
Remembering back to scene where Dana’s father gives her this assignment, he kinda infers that whilst most of the ‘revivers’ seem just like they were before, there are some that aren’t. Quite clearly grandma here is one of those who isn’t. The fact that she was praying had me thinking, maybe its the religious ones among the revived who are changed by their experience. Obviously too early to tell, but an interesting line of thought. And we are informed also that the revived appear to have super-human strength as we see the grandma break the arm of the neighbour by just grabbing it.
Not to be a pedant Bobby, but i think you’ll find thats a scythe, not a sickle
Overall a very interesting premise, good solid art and interesting though as you say not original dynamics among the characters. its nice to juxtapose this against Ken Garing’s Planetoid where we have a very unrealistic world with our hero facing a real world problem – that of survival, whereas in Revival, Seely and Norton render a very real world with an unrealistic problem. Overall a great opener to what appears to be a fascinating story.
I do hope to see more of that horny old man Lester