Review by: David Pinckney
With all that has been going on with zombies, it's hard to not consider any humanoid figure that feeds on other humans not a zombie even if the story doesn't explicitly say that's what they are. In Quarantine we have a virus that has infected one town and the the infected attack other humans mindlessly. So with that, you can see that in the purest sense this is a zombie comic. This comic centers around surviving an outbreak of these zombie-esque people. What should be pointed out about Quarantine is that it is not just a carbon copy zombie story. It does have its own voice even if there are elements in this story that's similar to others.
Now, the plot of the story is a group of people trying to overcome some odds, survive, and escape the town which the government has set up a military barrier around. The government deemed it necessary to not let anyone in or out of the town because that town is the only place known (at least to the readers) to have this out break. It felt as you continued to read the story you got a lot of back story but the pacing and deliverance of the back story slowed down the story as a whole. In fairness, though, the back-stories did give a lot of insight to the characters and helped with the overall setting of the comic. That said, at times we got information that never really developed or played out fully as well as plot points that never seemed to go anywhere.
Overall though, the comic was decent. The story offered moments of suspense and made you care about the characters. Though the characters didn't seem to really develop, the back-stories and intrigue was enough to make the characters feel not so static. In addition to this, there are moments that are actually pretty scary and feel very right for this comic.
The art in the graphic novel is okay with enough to distinguish from each character, but there are parts of the comic where it's really hard to tell what is actually happening. Sometimes the colors of the comic tend to bleed together because of how dark the comic is, this causes a few blurry scenes.
In short the comic has its faults but it is not a bad comic, in fact, the comic is entertaining and does provide a very solid concept. This comic may not be for everyone, but if you enjoy a good survival horror comic, then you may want to check out this new graphic novel.
