Issue: ’68 Encore
Release Date: October 05, 2011
Writer: Mark Kidwell
Artist: Nat Jones & Jay Fotos
Publisher: Image Comics
It’s 1968 and you are a soldier stuck in the middle of a Vietnam jungle. You expect to kill a few, if not many in order to preserve your own survival. But are you prepared to kill them again once they rise and become the undead? You would be, if you were a soldier in ’68 Encore.
The story follows a group of five American soldiers, making their way through the jungles of Vietnam in 1968. As they fight their way to the rendezvous spot, they meet a new enemy: the zombie. Fighting their disbelief over the new events unfolding, they fight against what they have been taught is real and what is really happening.
The story draws to a conclusion that would make George Romero and Rod Serling proud. It also leaves it open to the possibility and hope of more tales yet to be told of what a zombie apocalypse in 1968 would be like.
’68 Encore is written by Mark Kidwell and drawn by Nat Jones and Jay Fotos. It is actual a rebirth of sorts of the original ’68 that was put out in 2006. It’s been remastered and is just the start of a new ’68 series of comics. Kidwell was inspired, of course by George Romero’s masterpiece, Night of the Living Dead. He wanted to set the scene of a zombie invasion taking place all over the world in 1968 and not just in the rural Pennysylvania setting of Night of the Living Dead.
It’s an entertaining concept and I look forwarding to reading more in this series. If you enjoy a good “What if?” scenario, war story and can’t get enough of undead storys, ’68 Encore is worth picking up.
Rating: 4 / 5 Stars
About the Author
M.C. Shumaker was doomed to be a geek from the start. It started in utero, when she was read the collected works of Tolkien. She built a computer before she could drive a car. She had a zombie apocalypse survival plan before they were cool. The Fourth Doctor is her Doctor. Spock, Mulder and Tesla were her first crushes. She is a Trekker, Browncoat, Niner, Lostie, Whovian, and an X-Phile.Her geek specialties are graphic literature, web comics, the world of Harry Potter, science fiction, British television, hard science, LOST and The X-Files. Due to her upbringing by a Tolkien obsessed mother and Trekker father, she has a soft spot for fantasy, literature, and the Klingon language too.
She has an unhealthy obsession with Nikola Tesla, The Lone Gunmen, robots, zombies and Japanese hard candy.
When she isn't writing the Great American Graphic Novel, knitting fandom related amigurumi, or engaging in an argument over why it should be required for new Doctor Who fans to watch the episodes prior to Eccleston, she plays the part of a mild mannered freelance writer counting down the days until this year's Dragon*Con.
She received a bachelor of arts in Creative Writing from Florida State University in 2002. She resides in Tallahassee, FL, with her mad scientist husband and a pet basil plant named Basil. When she grows up, she wants to be a professional disc golfer or a robot. Maybe both.
You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/_squarerootofpi or her blog at http://squarerootofpi.livejournal.com/.