I still think the fact that this type of fiction writing/artwork can elicit such strong emotions from the readers says something about the work itself – definitely a polarizing concept, but sort of a litmus test for the reader: “How much can you handle?”

Definitely NOT your run of the mill comic, and NOT a typically cliche zombie story.

That’s a very valid point, but as with any message by any media, there will be a portion of the population who don’t care to consider the question, much less view a possible answer. This is by no means a bad book (in fact, there are passages in issue #5 that are quite beautifully done) but it is a story that alienates me on several levels, notably the repeated murder of children (yes, it’s one of my triggers, but everybody has them.) My problem with Crossed is simple: it doesn’t come across as a story that is trying to wake me up to the violence inherent in the system, it comes across as a story that’s reveling in it, that’s trying to one-up the violence we see on YouTube and the evening news and spice it up with rape and dismemberment and a little sexual deviancy.

As always, your mileage may vary.

“Remember YouTube?” – asked in the first issue, is referencing how people watch death and injury videos online for ‘entertainment’, calling out what they feel is ‘fake’ or ‘unrealistic.’ The evening news showing war and crime footage becoming an everyday event where nothing is real or shocking anymore because it is happening ’somewhere else’. This book takes that fact and uses it to smack you in the face and scream ‘WAKE-UP!’

Yes the violence is graphic beyond belief, yes character motivation can, at times, be questionable – but I find the value in seeing a world where the violence and pain and terror that is so often portrayed for entertainment purposes, being portrayed as actually having an effect on those that witness it – call it ‘the chickens coming home to roost.’

Readers only viewing the graphic violence on the page for what it is and not attempting to delve into the deeper message are missing the point: How would you deal with having those that inflict torture, pain and death no longer being relegated to your TV or computer screen but rather having them knocking on your front door?

In terms of the crossed themselves, as stated in The Night of the Living Dead – “We are them and they are us…”

I don’t see this as a zombie book. I see this as a look into human nature.

An example is this issue: this guy the group has come to befriend admits he was a serial killer before things went to crap. What do they do to this friend? They kill him. The humans kill their friend because of what he is. Its the same reason they kill the Crossed (zombies) because they are monsters. Even though this guy did nothing but be a friend to them.

In another they kill a bunch of kids that resorted to cannibalism. They do this to protect other people who may fall prey to these monsters. Just like the Crossed, they kill them because of what they have become.

I’m not defending this book to the point of me thinking its the best thing ever, but it does have some redeeming quality under all the rape and sodomy. I think the graphic nature of the art IS overdone to the point where it makes the book a major turn off to a lot of people but the way it deals with human nature is cool premise.

I regularly read the Walking Dead for my “Zombie” fix. The great thing about that book is that the emphasis is more on the lifestyle that the survivors have to lead under these conditions and less on the zombies killing people.

And even when something terrible does happen to one of the main characters like a murder or a zombie attack, I’m not thinking of how gruesome/awesome that decapitation was, I’m thinking about how sad I am that one of my favorite characters was just killed.

But hey that’s just me. And I’m sure that I’m not the target audience for this work. At all.

Sure, these Crossed zombie-like things are despicable but the point being made is how despicable the survivors are.

This book is a takes something so ugly and compares that to humans in a way that shows just how ugly humans really are.

It does take a little bit to get over ALLLLL of the crazy stuff going on in this book, but I believe there is an underlying story with meaning under all that blood and gore.

It’s just going by the John Wayne Gacy scenic route.

I really have to wonder what people are reading this, but I’ve got to say that this is one of the few comics that can turn me off from just viewing a single panel.