COMIC BOOK Review--iZombie: uVampire by Chris Roberson & Michael Allred

Told from a female zombie’s perspective, this smart, witty detective series mixes urban fantasy and romantic dramedy.Gwendolyn “Gwen” Dylan is a 20-something gravedigger in an eco-friendly cemetery. Once a month she must eat a human brain to keep from losing her memories, but in the process she becomes consumed with the thoughts and personality of the dead person – until she eats her next brain. She sets out to fulfill the dead person’s last request, solve a crime or right a wrong.

In uVAMPIRE, Gwen dines on the grey matter of a person who knew her as a child – and things quickly get complicated. Meanwhile, ghost-girl Ellie learns a few tricks from Amon the mummy; Spot the were-terrier goes to the comics shop and meets someone from Gwen’s past, the mad scientist Galatea engages in a bit of grave-robbing; and the monster-hunters tackle the town’s vampire problem once and for all.

Moving right along to iZombie: uVampire, Chris Roberson and Michael Allred continue the story of Gwen who’s trying to make her life work as a zombie. It’s been a month since the events of the first “book” and now there’s a shortage of fresh brains to eat. Someone is stealing the dead bodies from the morgue and without a body to bury, there’s no brains to eat.

Just when she thinks all hope might be lost, a body turns up in the grave and Gwen is able to finally have herself a meal, only she happens to know who the brain belongs to. It’s the mother of her long ago best friend, Tricia, from when she was alive and human. There’s not much to go on with the mother’s death, but she needs Gwen to deliver a message to Tricia.

We also get more of a backstory on Scott and how he became a were-terrier. The opening scene to that particular issue though left more questions than answers and I really don’t know what to make of that. It seems every once in a while the issues open with a flashback of some kind, but it’s hard to piece some things together. It might really mean nothing, but I’d just like to know because that first one was so out there and I was like What the What?!

There’s a little more focus on Amon and the mystery that he presents, not a great deal mind you, but something that gives us more to think about. A lot of the little cliffhangers that happened in the first book were picked up again and expanded upon. Though there are more questions to be had now by the end of this collection.

There was a little more progress on the relationship front with Gwen and Horatio. I’m kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one! I mean, at some point it will come about what Gwen is and I am dying to know what Horatio will do. The whole monster and monster hunter falling in love is a trope I never tire of! Lol. I probably have Buffy to thank for that one first!

I guess one thing that perturbs me about this are the moments when Gwen gets the memories from whatever brain she just ate. Her face gets all zombie fleshy like and I wonder, are people seeing that? Or is this just some weird reaction so the reader knows what’s happening? I’m betting on the latter, because no one ever freaks out when Gwen goes through one of these “episodes.”

I’m still curious about this Amon guy and what he wants Gwen to do, basically give in to her monster side, which she doesn’t want to do. I’m wondering then if the guy he murdered last time around really was bad, though it seemed like something had happened to said victim before he turned bad. I don’t know really. It’s hard to explain without getting into too many details.

There’s a new plot brewing in this segment and I look forward to seeing what will happen in the next installment! Sorry for the weirdness of these reviews. It’s so hard to review comic books because they’re so short and don’t have many details to go on without rehashing everything! I know I left some stuff out, so yeah. There you go! If you are a fan of the show, iZombie, I would definitely recommend checking these out at some point. They’re very different, yet still pretty fun too!


Overall Rating 4/5 stars