Posted in: Comics | Tagged: avatar, avatar press, badlands, Comic Book Store, Comics, crossed, entertainment, max bemis, satire

Max Bemis Brings The Most Savage Comic Store Satire You've Seen In Crossed Badlands

Published Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:00:49 -0600

by Rich Johnston

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You thought that the Big Bang Theory comic store episodes were a little below the belt? That Eltingville was as savage a satire on comic shop society that you could ever see? Then you didn't read Max Bemis and German Erramouspe's first issue of Crossed Badlands last week, published by Bleeding Cool's own publisher Avatar.

To recap, Crossed, created by Garth Ennis, is a present day reality in which people have been infected by… something, that turns them into the sickest twisted version of themselves possible. Which then seeks to rape, murder and eat anyone else, regardless of gender and age, and not necessarily in that order – in a gleeful rampage. It's horror, it's satire, it is not for the faint hearted. It all but screams "trigger warning" on the cover. What it also does is show that it doesn't take such an infection for people to act like the sickest folk on the planet.

And last week's issue of the biweekly Crossed Badlands comic, they went into the comic shop.

You never want to go into this comic shop. It may seemingly have been inspired by a story about a certain comic store in Salem from last year...

It begins with a signing for a comic called I Hear Voices, by a woman called Leigha that is clearly not to the taste of the folk working at the store, despite its clear success.

And you may recognise their comments from, well, certain internet message boards. They are extreme, but hardly unrepresentative.

So, the Crossed outbreak takes place during the signing, all hell breaks loose and the fanboys lock themselves in. They know a zombie outbreak when they see one and know exactly what to do.

The problem is they know exactly what to do with Leigha as well. Because the back room of the comic store is now the "rape room".

This isn't after years. This is after days. Crossed, as ever, does its best to prove that people need very little to become the lowest of the low.

But from this point, it's now a battle for Leigha, not only to survive but to somehow get out. And she starts by giving them what these comic book geeks want even more than her body.

New comics. For a world that has seen the Crossed.

Of course, there are ways to get small revenge, even in that.

Crossed Badlands is a very nasty comic. That's no surprise. It's been critical of geek and geek culture before now. But this is the first time it seems to have actively turned on its audience quite so strongly. If anyone was still in any doubt that this is a satire…

Part two is out in a week. As usual, this won't end well for anyone. What's even worse is how this comic was solicited…

Max Bemis starts and all-new arc of Crossed to tell another gripping story in the world of ultimate misery.After C-Day everything changed.Nothing was every normal again – not life, not family, and not survival. The majority of people who didn't evolve with the new status quo were brutally killed or added to the ranks of psychopaths roaming the streets. But what about a love story in this new world of hate?

A… love story? That's going to be one hell of a turn around for the second chapter…

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