The Walking Dead. The Last of Us. Neither of them has anything on Crossed, the most depraved, upsetting, vile zombie riff you will ever read in your life.
Written by Garth Ennis (who else?) with art by frequent collaborator Jacen Burrows, Crossed begins with a pandemic that brands those infected with a large, bloody, raw cross on their faces, and essentially strips away all their inhibitions. They maim, they kill, and much, much worse as society quickly crumbles under the Crossed plague.
So these aren’t the reanimated dead… They’re worse, because these cackling, smiling maniacs are too-far-gone, but still human. The remaining survivors have to deal with killing people who are technically alive; but wouldn’t stop from skinning them without a second thought.
I really cannot emphasize enough how gross this is. If you’ve read other Ennis works like The Boys or his run on Punisher, you may think you have an idea. But this is so, so much worse.
Like other zombie books, the idea is how we retain our humanity when pushed to the limits — and contrasted with the Crossed, everyone looks almost like saints. But consider this the ultimate form of that genre. Not the pinnacle, but the putrid depths, mined up and thrown onto the comic book page.
Given the subject matter, the relatively short series hasn’t frequently been reprinted, but it has spun off into further series. That said, I’d suggest dipping your toes in this one before buying the whole collection. If you get to the first scene of rape and cannibalism and say “I’m out,” you’re probably doing the right thing. This book is gross.
It’s spooky season, and you know what that means: time to curl up with a comic book or graphic novel that will scare your socks off. With that in mind, we’re posting a new horror book to check out every day of October, for our 31 Days Of Halloween Comics. Awoooo! Looking for the rest of our picks? Check them out on the Halloween tag.
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