The Last Resort

The Last Resort

Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Artist: Giancarlo Caracuzzo
Covers: Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner

Zombies, it seems, are everywhere.  Though the creatures in the Last Resort aren’t  zombies.  They’re something rather different, as is this story.

The first time I read through this book, I found myself caught up in it. It felt like a movie nearly, carrying me through from start to finish, mixing exposition and humour, dialogue and drama. There is sex, violence and a book that at no point takes itself too seriously.  Time is spent on characterisation, time that is truly welcome, as the individuals who effect the rest of the storyline are something that set this apart from an average hollywood style horror.

All of that doesn’t seem so odd when you look at one of the official releases for the first issue:
A zombie epic that pays homage to 1970s exploitation films and disaster movies like Airport and Towering Inferno. In an entertaining and darkly over-the-top celebration of gore and sex, The Last Resort transforms a Caribbean paradise into a biological wasteland populated with homicidal flesh-eating vacationers!

One of the best parts of the book is a threat that could actually be frightening, and a situation that for all of its strangeness, seems delightfully plausible.  .  Genetic experimentation, a contagion let loose, an emergency landing on a resort island all mix together into what is a fast moving and thoroughly enjoyable book.

Caracuzzo’s art suits the book brilliantly.  There’s a quality to the colours and the pencils that is resonant of a film, something that moves you easily from one panel to the next, carrying you through the book.  So much of the book takes place in the day, and yet there’s no sense that the darkness of it is lost.  The violence is depicted beautifully in his art, and yet graphically.  It’s a combination that works well.  Darwyn Cooke’s covers (helpfully collected in the TPB along with one of Amanda Conner’s) are playful and yet sexy, and reflect the book extremely well.

On re-reads I’ve picked up more details.  Detail in the story and the art that I skimmed over the first time or two.  It’s held up as an entertaining and engrossing read.  In fact, it’s made my list of books I frequently pull off my shelf to read again.  Now I really am just waiting for it to be made into a movie.

My final analysis?  Find a copy of the tpb from IDW.  It’s a great read, especially if you’re a fan of old school horror/thrillers from the 70s/early 80s.  You won’t be sorry that you did pick this up.