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Kiss Zombies #3 (Dynamite Entertainment) Comic Review
Released by: Dynamite Entertainment
Released on: January 29th, 2020.
Written by: Ethan Sacks
Illustrated by: Rodney Buchemi
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In the last issue of KISS Zombies, we left Laila, Crusher, Hank and the four members of KISS after they'd just escaped a horde of zombies in New York City, a man-sized predicament if ever there was one. But before we catch up with them, we head to New Detroit, the village that Laila and her pals came from in the first place. The leader watches through binoculars - he doesn't really know what to do. And while everybody else is there, he's watching zombies, not watching you. Anyway, somehow he knows that something far worse than the zombies that surround them will be arriving soon… and that Laila made a big mistake. It's almost like he expects that she'll be comin' home again.
Cut to a cemetery where Laila's crew and KISS are running from yet more zombies. Everybody's gonna move their feet, cause they're hoping to take solace in the farmhouse they can see nearby. There's nowhere else to go, it's not like they can crash at a hotel and order room service or anything. The mailbox attributes ownership to one G. Romero and lists the address as 1968, causing the Starchild to note that the place looks familiar, almost as if it were something out of a horror movie. We see the inhabitants of the farmhouse, and yeah, it's the leads from Night Of The Living Dead, but they won't open up just as Space Ace shows us everything he's got and takes out a zombie grandma with an acoustic guitar. These zombies have clearly been to the market and ascertained that the meat looks good. Eventually everyone outside keeps on shouting and the NOTLD cast opens the door while Gene instructs Starchild to create a diversion and Space Ace to go back to the bus. Why? Not so The Demon can put ice cubes in his cereal, but so that he can get a radio, and it's not so that he can use it to keep talkin' louder, it's because Laila says will repel the zombies.
Just then, bad humans with guns and masks, led by a guy calling himself Big Pig (he's a lowlife, a real parasite, a three-time loser is all he'll ever be), show up and wreak havoc but The Demon, modern day man of steel that he is, gives them a fright and then beats them up - but there's a lot of them. He needs that diversion, and he gets it when Space Ace lights up some gasoline and torches a whole lot of the masked gunmen - they're hotter than Hell! As the zombies get closer to Crusher, Hank and the poor Cat Man, Laila gets the radio working and Starchild shows up with the bus, he's clearly movin' fast, doing about 95 or so. Has the day been saved, at least for now, or have they hit rock bottom? This series is full of strange ways and twisted days indeed!
Whoo yeah, issue #3 keeps things going at a good pace. The Romero nod and the inclusion of the cast of Night Of The Living Dead was corny, but the stakes just keep getting higher and higher and higher and higher in this series and it ends, once again, with a big cliffhanger. Ethan Sacks' story is hokey but entertaining, there's a kind of sweet pain to it that you find pleasing. It doesn't matter what you do or say before you read this, just turn your brain off and enjoy the overt silliness of it all. It is, however, hard not to notice that poor Cat Man is given nothing to do here except just sort of run around in the background like he's trying to getaway. Maybe Sacks needs to start givin' and stop livin' above ol' Cat Man.
Rodney Buchemi's artwork is solid. Decent detail, you can recognize KISS' faces from all of the magazines, but sometimes the backgrounds look a little sparse and rushed - maybe he was trying to expedite things and we should call him Mr. Speed! But drawing isn't as easy as it seems, he does a fine job here. There's enough going on in this third issue to keep me comin' back for the next issue. Ooh yeah, comin', comin', ooh, whoa whoa, ooh yeah, right here, right now. Oh, and the cover that may or may not have been done by Arthur Suydam (I can't really tell, is that his signature?) is also a nice touch.