Comic Book Review: "Still Life with Apocalypse" by Imogen Mangle
This month I’m reviewing a book my husband picked up at Plymouth Comic and Zine Fair. He brought it home, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it, so I sort of nicked it. It’s “Still Life with Apocalypse”, adapted to comic book format by Imogen Mangle. Richard Kadrey wrote the original story.
I haven’t read the short story. Still, from what I gather from its online reviews, Imogen has peppered her comic book version with colourful details, a lot of imagination and beautiful visuals. Beautiful and eerie because that’s what the story lends itself to, and she achieved it masterfully.
The narrator leads us through a collapsed society, full of children scavenging and looking for remains of the old world. The main character calls it “the end of the world”. But you can’t help but think, how can the world have ended if they’re still there? I think that’s part of what makes this story so appealing. There’s a certain comedy angle to it, mixed with feelings of despair.
And they don’t know why the world has ended. Or when. They suspect that it was a sequence of events. But what events?
If you enjoy post-apocalyptic comics, oh, this definitely is for you. I know I do. But if you pick it up, don’t forget to follow up on the advice on the back cover:
Imogen also has a few online webcomics that you can look at. I’ll do that myself once I hit send on this post!
Read “Still Life with Apocalypse”
Do you have or know of a comic that you’d like me to review? Feel free to drop an email: reviews@claudiamatosa.com.
Thank you for reading! For more frequent updates, you can also find me on the following socials:
Instagram (the one I update regularly)
Ex-Twitter (what the hell is going on with that?!)