Review: Not Alone Vol. 1

In a world where the dead walk and you“re simply trying to get to your hidden cachet of supplies in a subway tunnel, it“s nice to have a companion. By ”˜nice“ I mean someone who will not stop saying the silliest things and annoying the living daylights out of you. This is the setup for the new paperback graphic novel Not Alone, created by Greek writer and artist Sophocles Sapounas.

This graphic novel is really a nice combination of story and style. The story is simple, it“s a tale of two people who accidentally find each other. One has a bad case of amnesia, while the other is trained to survive in the wild, away from the cities and the walking hordes of undead who make the streets their home. Not wanting to leave a poor young man alone, with no supplies, our female protagonist allows him to travel with her for what she believes will be a short period of time. She ends up not being able to get rid of him. The two have to use their wits to survive when they adventure into the city for her hidden supplies.
In what clearly seems to be inspired by the Scott Pilgrim comics, Sapounas has written a completely enjoyable story here. This is not a heavy, dystopian end of the world zombie tale, but more like a daring fun adventure, that happens to involve the living dead. The two characters play very well off one another, where one is serious and hell-bent on finishing her task, while the other seems utterly clueless about anything and has the attention span of a two-year-old who has eaten too much sugar. There is a lot of fun to be had with this pair, and hopefully this continues to develop in subsequent volumes of the story.

The style of this graphic novel is deceivingly tremendous. Each of the pages are ink and watercolor. There is no color, and at I began the first few pages, I thought this would end up being a bit dreary. I was dead wrong. Into the first chapter I noticed the pages were much more clean than I had thought and the personality of the characters really started to shine through. I had quite a bit of fun getting to know these characters through their expressions and mannerisms.
If there was one think I wish were different about Not Alone, it“s that over 196 pages, I can“t recall learning the names of either of our main characters. In truth, the only names that were given were from two guys named Bob. It“s unusual to not learn the names of main characters of a story, but as one of the characters is consistently trying to rid herself of her unwanted companion, I can understand her lack of desire to know him by name.

Not Alone is a fun graphic novel. If you“re a fan of the previously mentioned Scott Pilgrim, then you will probably like this too. This is the first in what is planned to be a series of graphic novels and new pages are posted online three days a week. I“m looking forward to volume two, as the cliffhanger at the end of this first volume has me curious. Give this one a chance for sure.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

W/A:Â Sophocles Sapounas

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Bryan Spaulding

In his free time, other than reading comic books, Bryan enjoys listening to his ever growing record collection and driving his 27 year old roadster named Mingo.