'Yan is on top of the world. School's almost out for summer, he's about to have a new baby sister, and he's going to be spending his vacation making a zombie movie with his best friend Nico. But on his way home from school, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and before he knows it, his life is slipping away... Things are no longer smelling rosy now that Yan's pushing up daisies. But for some reason, Yan's soul isn't going anywhere: his body may be rotting, but his mind is clear, and once out of his grave, Yan is determined to be reunited with his family. He may be falling apart, but he isn't about to let that happen to them!'
Death doesn't tend to be where many stories start, not least when its the lead character dying; but the new teen zombie story Dead and Unburied does just this, introducing readers to our lead character, Yan, before killing him less than dozen pages in.
Yan Faucher is your average teenage guy. He has a decent home with his mother and father, his older sister, and his younger brother; as well as a baby sister about to be born any day. His best friend Nico and he love movies, and the two of them dream of making a zombie movie together over the summer holidays and making a break into the film industry. Life is good, and Yan is having fun enjoying his teenage years. However, when Yan is walking home from school, heading to the hospital to see his newly born sister for the first time, he comes across a local thug threatening someone. When he sees the thug pull out a knife Yan rushes in to help, but gets stabbed in the stomach.
Despite being found by one of his classmates, Alice, who attempts to perform CPR on him whilst help comes, Yan is beyond saving, and passes away. Except, his spirit doesn't seem to want to leave his body. Yan gets to witness his family saying goodbye to him at his funeral, before he's buried. After what feels like forever Yan discovers that he can move his body again, and discovers that he's somehow come back from the dead. With no way out of his coffin, and nothing better to do, Yan decides to occupy himself with his beloved trumpet, which was buried with him.
On the anniversary of Yan's death Nico visits his friends grave, and hears the sound of a trumpet coming from beneath the soil. Knowing that this means his friends must somehow be alive , Nico sneaks out at night and returns to the cemetery, determined to dig Yan up and be reunited with his friend. Unfortunately, things doesn't quite go as planned.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about Dead and Unburied is how it's not trying to be your typical zombie story. Zombies seem to have gone through a huge boom over the last decade and a half, appearing in all kinds of genres and all manner of situations, and whilst some projects try new things they all seem to be variations of 'zombie plague wiping out humanity'. There's none of this here. There's nothing in the book that hints of awful things to come, or even that there's any other zombie in the world other than Yan. This isn't about how humanity adapts to an extinction event, or how the apocalypse brings out the worst in humans. It's about the loss of a kid, and how that ripples out into the rest of the world.
The book is ore of a study about how much an impact a single person can have on dozens of other lives; even if that person was a completely ordinary and average kid. After he's died and he's laying in his coffin Yan imagines the world without him, how his family adapt and move on, and how the world will be without him. And for the most part he seems to hope for the best. He doesn't wallow in self pity at having died, but hopes that the loss of him can spur his family on to do good things and live a better life. So when he visits his home and finds a father barely holding things together and drinking, a sister who's gone off the rails and involved with criminals, a brother who seems to have regressed and doesn't speak, and a mother barely keeping it together it hurts him. He also learns that in the year since he died Nico went through a mental breakdown and was hospitalised.
Yan wasn't anything special, he was a normal, average kid who had a few close friends and a family. He hadn't changed the world, or created art that would entertain and inspire thousands. He was just a kid; yet still the loss of him from the world had such a huge effect on those left behind. I think this is one of the more accurate depictions of loss that I've seen, though possibly pushed for effect. No one in the world means nothing, everyone touches other lives in some way, often important ways; and the loss of anyone changes the world.
Outside of the family issues Yan gets into a few scrapes across the town, including getting to frighten the man who killed him, and getting chased by police. He's struggling to adapt to being out of his coffin, and it makes for some fun moments across the book. He's not just back from the dead, he's the living dead, so he looks and smells like a corpse and has to deal with that.
Whilst there's a lot that happens around Yan and his family there's little explanation as to how this has all happened, how he's back from the dead; and I assume that this is something that will be explored in the next volume. Normally such a glaring omission of information, or at least a lack of hints as to a solution, would annoy me in some way; as I'd want something here that I could look at for a possible solution. But I honestly didn't mind it at all. This was mainly due to the rest of the book being so engaging and entertaining that I didn't even notice that there was no solution offered for Yan becoming a zombie; which I think speaks to how well written the book was that this hugely important thing didn't even register to me.
The art for the book is supplied by Pascal Colpron, who does a really good job. The book has this really nice look to it, where everything feels bright and colourful without feeling overly cartoonish. It's a comic where everything feels alive and vibrant, even if the lead himself is not. And this really works. They also do a good job at making Yan not feel too disgusting as a zombie too. It's clear that he's not a regular human, thanks to his dry, sunken face and exaggerated features, but he's not a disgusting, rotting mess. The choice to make him green and wizened looking, rather than having huge chunks of flesh hanging off means that he still feels enough like a real person for you to be able to connect to him. He can still emote with his face, and you can see him as a person rather than just a walking corpse.
Dead and Unburied is a fun zombie story that doesn't focus on the horror of the living dead, but instead takes a look at the impact that people have on the lives of others, how important people can be, and how death can change lives. With so much more left to cover, this feels like the perfect set up for more interesting things to come in future volumes.
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