So 28 Days Later: The Aftermath will never stand shoulder to shoulder with great achievements in Graphic Novels, but it does what it does very well and helps flesh out the backstory of the first film, while setting up the second.
Warning - here be spoilers.
4 separate stories are told. The first takes place a week or so before the first film, and details the backstory of the scientists developing the Rage Virus, culminating in one of them quitting the project and phoning the activists who break into the lab.
The second story sees a family on an idyllic sunny afternoon, enjoying a picnic near Cambridge, when their youngest son gets attacked by one of the monkeys that escaped the lab. I didn't really like the story because the family wasn't typically depicted - they were rough, they swear, they're by no means victims. I just couldn't emotionally connect with their tragedy because of it. It there is no threat due to their weakness either physically or emotioanlly, it is hard to buy into their tale. But the cool thing is that it shows their escape as they follow the ambulance carrying their infected son into London, and of course you know what happens. Their story is like the opening of the Dawn Of The Dead remake crossed with the car escape sequence in Children Of Men. It has that kind of vibe.
We see them form a plan of escape, and the parents make the ultimate sacrifice at the end to help their remaining kids get away.
The third story is kind of fun. A newspaper shop owner becomes a Rambo-esque vigilante, arming himself to the teeth, right in the middle of the outbreak. He's the one that discovers that the Infected are attracted to the smell of the uninfected. He claims London as his turf, and actually fights it out with another survivor on a similar mission.
His story ends with the British jets flying over London that you see at the end of 28 Days Later.
The fourth story, of course, has the scientist, the two kids and the vigilante meeting up in a military compound. It doesn't take long for them to figure out that they are being kept for nefarious reasons, so they formulate an escape plan, which sees one of the kids die and the girl take out the scientist is revenge - not before he tells her that the virus can mutate again, thus setting up the second film.
As I said, it's not the greatest thing you'll ever read, but it does what it does. It bridges the films and fleshes out the backstory. It was kind of cool to see what other people besides Jim were up to while 28 Days Later was going on.
It didn't have enough, "That was cool" moments, but the stories were solid and grounded in the reality that the film created, the dialogue and atmosphere was remarkably similar, and the artists involved in each of the stories do a solid job - particularly the 4th story involving the compound.
So there you have it. Anyone else read it?
Warning - here be spoilers.
4 separate stories are told. The first takes place a week or so before the first film, and details the backstory of the scientists developing the Rage Virus, culminating in one of them quitting the project and phoning the activists who break into the lab.
The second story sees a family on an idyllic sunny afternoon, enjoying a picnic near Cambridge, when their youngest son gets attacked by one of the monkeys that escaped the lab. I didn't really like the story because the family wasn't typically depicted - they were rough, they swear, they're by no means victims. I just couldn't emotionally connect with their tragedy because of it. It there is no threat due to their weakness either physically or emotioanlly, it is hard to buy into their tale. But the cool thing is that it shows their escape as they follow the ambulance carrying their infected son into London, and of course you know what happens. Their story is like the opening of the Dawn Of The Dead remake crossed with the car escape sequence in Children Of Men. It has that kind of vibe.
We see them form a plan of escape, and the parents make the ultimate sacrifice at the end to help their remaining kids get away.
The third story is kind of fun. A newspaper shop owner becomes a Rambo-esque vigilante, arming himself to the teeth, right in the middle of the outbreak. He's the one that discovers that the Infected are attracted to the smell of the uninfected. He claims London as his turf, and actually fights it out with another survivor on a similar mission.
His story ends with the British jets flying over London that you see at the end of 28 Days Later.
The fourth story, of course, has the scientist, the two kids and the vigilante meeting up in a military compound. It doesn't take long for them to figure out that they are being kept for nefarious reasons, so they formulate an escape plan, which sees one of the kids die and the girl take out the scientist is revenge - not before he tells her that the virus can mutate again, thus setting up the second film.
As I said, it's not the greatest thing you'll ever read, but it does what it does. It bridges the films and fleshes out the backstory. It was kind of cool to see what other people besides Jim were up to while 28 Days Later was going on.
It didn't have enough, "That was cool" moments, but the stories were solid and grounded in the reality that the film created, the dialogue and atmosphere was remarkably similar, and the artists involved in each of the stories do a solid job - particularly the 4th story involving the compound.
So there you have it. Anyone else read it?