Crowdfunder Review: THE DEAD AND THE DAMNED #1

The Dead and the Damned #1 – 2

Writer: Sebastian Girner
Artist: Kelly Williams
Letterer: Jeff Powell
Publisher: Goats Flying Press

It’s been quite the week for Goats Flying Press, the Kickstarter publishing project helmed by Sebastian Girner. The Goat launched its third crowdfunder in roughly one year’s time, a graphic novel titled The Fables of Erlking Wood, from rising star cartoonist Juni Ba, with letterers by Aditya Bidikar. And the book rocketed out of the gate, hitting its $8,000 funding target within 50 minutes en route to just over $28,000, with a full month remaining in the campaign at the time of this writing.

It is, in other words, a project that people really like, a major success for any publisher, on or off of Kickstarter. So, it stands to reason that there are some new eyes coming to Goats Flying Press, which makes this an excellent time to take stock of the publisher’s first two comics, The Dead and the Damned #1 and #2. I was planning to review these books anyway, because — as we’ll discuss shortly — they have sooo many skeletons that it would almost be comics reviewer malfeasance to not write about these books on Halloween.

So yes, that is perhaps the first thing you will notice about these comics. The skeletons. Most of which are waring armor and wielding medieval weaponry. They are rendered to heavy metal cover art perfection by artist Kelly Williams. Written by Girner with design and lettering by Jeff Powell, The Dead and the Damned is is a comic that lets you know what’s for sale right up front, with a brief three-panel page one intro (see above) before jumping right into a pair of dark fantasy warfare splashes that will blow you away with detail, from the diversity of the undead army withing the first one (see below) to the absurdity of the violence (flying severed head, anyone?…also, see below below) in the second.

You really ought to know if this series is something you’re interested by the end of that second spread. I know I was hooked by that point. It’s a comic that knows the medium well, knows the genre it’s working in, and gets down the business excellently combining the two. But it’s not all dark fantasy warfare here (although it is mostly dark fantasy warfare here). These are oversized comics that span 48 pages each issue, and they both lean into deliver mythology, character backstories revealed at just the right moments, lofty questions about the nature of death and war and fighting, and even some great banter-y hero stuff.

The Dead and the Damned #1 and #2 are dark comics that read fast and have a lot of fun with their inherent darkness. They know exactly what they are. The oversized format is a perfect example of that. These books are as much an artist showcase as anything, and being that little bit bigger really lets the detail in the art shine. They’re also lightly paneled. I didn’t do the math, but it felt like it was far more common for the pages to have 3 or 4 panels than 5. This combines with the oversized format to make the artwork feel even heavier (complimentary) as you move through the story.

The other really interesting visual choice in play here is the color. This is largely a story told in grayscale, but it does use color to evoke big moments, ranging from spilled blood to little touches of ethereal magic. The writing establishes that the world has essentially been a death-ruled wasteland for as long as anyone can remember, and that plays so nicely with the way color is deployed in these first two issues.

Overall, I could go on listing things I enjoyed in these comics, but I think the central takeaway here is that this is a book from experienced comics pros who’ve thought through every detail. It’s also been a well-run crowdfunding campaign, offering a prestige feel for its price point, a speedy fulfilment timeline, and the sense that you’re on the ground floor of something cool and new and truly creator-driven in comics.

The Dead and the Damned #1 and #2 are available now in the Goats Flying Press web store.

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