Night & Fog (Studio 407 – Leung / Bradford / Castro / Aira / Ringuet)
Linked to a secret from the past, an experiment in a black ops bioengineering facility–to create a smart soldier that can adapt to any combat environment, leads to a horrible freak accident. The ensuing bio-chemical disaster turns the inhabitants of a nearby village into a horde of rampaging creatures, leaving only a handful of survivors to escape infection. But things get dramatically worse when they discover that the transformation the creatures have undergone is only one of many–into something far more horrific and unstoppable.
Studio 407 is a new publisher to me and reading Night & Fog has made sure I will check them out again!
It’s not that the story behind Night & Fog is that out of the box… science goes awry, the threat is underestimated and gets way out of hand, military bad-asses are called in, somewhere there are “innocents” that are in harm’s way, the dark experiment could have global impact, etc… The truth is, we know the general outline of what is to come with a story like this. But rather than being a detriment, it is a bonus. That is how I know this book is well written. because it kept me compelled to keep reading even though I had a general sense of what was going to come.
Follow me on this. Even though most zombie movies can be summarized in a few sentences, what makes us keep watching? What sucks us in? Why did 28 Days Later make my heart race but Diary of the Dead put me to sleep? I break into three factors – great characters, well-paced writing and some very cool actions scenes. Well, Night & Fog has all three! Alex Leung and Matthew Bradford give us characters we care about – I hope they get out and survive, I care about what will happen. And the story moves along giving just the right amount of details without bogging the reader down is ridiculous slide plots, pivoting back and forth between emotion and action. The art team (Castro, Aira and Ringuet) does an amazing job and has some frames and splash pages that put the big dog publishers to shame.
By their own words, Studio 407 compare Night & Fog to the work of John Carpenter. And I couldn’t agree more! Suspense, action and drama all wrapped up in a horror infrastructure. This 150 page trade will be out soon and is listed at $16.99 here and well worth a try!
Issue grade: Serious A
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