Created by Mark Rahner

Written by Mark Rahner & Robert Horton

Art, Colors & Cover by Dan Dougherty

Lettering by Sean Konot

Published by Moonstone

32 pages, $3.99

Review by Henry Chamberlain

There’s always room for a good zombie story, especially one that gives the undead a really good twist. Rotten twists and turns and unabashedly splatters blood everywhere. It is set in the Wild West during a major growth spurt for the United States as it deals with what sure feels like a rigged election for President. Sound familiar? Well, whether a connection will be made between a zombie Rutherford B. Hayes and a zombie George W. Bush has yet to be seen but, with this comic, anything seems possible.

With zombie fever sky high in comics, all the talent behind Rotten is on top of their game. The art of Dan Dougherty is the best you could want for this story. His style is a precise thin line that beautifully builds with well-placed crosshatching and a great eye for dramatic composition and page layout. This results in well-grounded characters and backgrounds in sync with the eyewitness feel of the writing of Mark Rahner and Robert Horton. The lettering by Sean Konot is noteworthy too in that it nicely fits in with the crisp, dry and deadpan vibe at play here.

There is a curiously reserved quality to Westerns with their desolate little towns out in the desert, lone desperadoes on horseback and tumbleweeds blowing in the wind. It seems only right that zombies, with their quiet menace, should join in. And, for all their unholy terror, the townsfolk deal with the creatures as best they can. Zombies may eat humans alive, given a chance, but life must go on. In the first two issues of Rotten, we see how two different towns react. In the town of Shimmer, dependent on the silver mine, the hope is to somehow work around them. In the town of Argo, completely new to zombies, the one zombie girl is declared a miracle. And through it all, people seem more resigned to the zombies than terrified by them. It’s only when they get a little too close and then it’s another matter.

By Issue Three, you’ve got a monumental struggle between life and death in the town of Argo. Battle lines have been drawn between citizens for and citizens against the zombie girl. And it’s mostly a right-to-life feeling here for the creature. It’s God’s will. It’s the sanctity of life. Again, does this sound familiar? To put a finer point on it, the miracle girl’s name is “Tracy Shilo.” So, depending on your beliefs, this may come across as heavy handed. But, as political satire, it’s hard to deny the artistic bite. And, given a chance, you’ll see that it really works.

Amid the growing problem of zombies in the hinterland, the two main players in this story are a couple of federal agents on special orders by Pres. Hayes to get to the bottom of a potential plague. Both are average, just-the-facts types and therefore great foils for the surreal mayhem all around them. In its attempt to capture the action, as if on the front lines, Rotten does a wonderful job of depicting a weird situation in a naturalistic, non-flashy, manner which helps to make it seem all the more real. The agents are not heroes. The zombies are not Hollywood monsters. And people will react to them however they choose to, warts and all.

It won’t be a surprise to learn that the creator of this comic, Mark Rahner, is actually a reporter. Years of collecting facts and covering beats pays off with this comic’s added texture. There’s even a reporter covering the story who, like everyone else, is not given any glamour. Instead, this guy proves to be a bit of a hack. In frustration, a doctor determined to prove that Tracy Shilo is no longer a living human being quotes Goya, “The sleep of reason produces monsters.”  The reporter promptly asks him if he can quote him.

The mood and style of this book is remarkably consistent. It is impressive to see that Dan Dougherty is doing all the art, the colors and cover, and doing it so well. It can not be said enough how big a role he’s playing. He uses some wonderfully creepy shades of orange and green. And you haven’t seen flies until you’ve seen his version of the little critters.

Moonstone is a comics publisher with a focus on noir, the offbeat and a mixture of both. Of all its current titles, Rotten is one of its best if not the best. And, on top of that, this is a comic that can hold its own with any other comic, zombified or not. Think of it as a cross between Jonah Hex and The Walking Dead with a healthy dose of Jon Stewart for that extra kick.

And here’s a bonus bit of speculation which shouldn’t be a spoiler since it appears on the very first page of the series. If you look at that page’s last panel, the bloodstained newspaper headline reads, “Hayes Wins Election In Corrupt Bargain.” History shows that an alleged corrupt compromise helped secure the presidency for Hayes. If that means Hayes should be seen as a zombie puppet of special interests, maybe Rotten can bring that now dead matter back to life for us.