Illustrated and written by Melbourne artist Matthew Dunn, Lonely Monsters is a new, and much welcome, independant Australian horror comic.
The premise of Lonely Monsters is simple enough: zombies have taken over the city of Melbourne (and, we presume, the world). Most of the survivors have scattered, but a few brave souls have remained city bound, trying to scrounge out a living while simultaneously avoiding becoming a main course. Lonely Monsters follows the plight of this sorry band of survivors (not all of whom are the most desirable of characters).
The dialogue in Lonely Monsters is minimal, with Dunn using his artwork to generate most of the plot and atmosphere. With heavy black and grey overtones, the art is sombre and surrealistic, and effectively sparse in places. It's clear that the inspiration for Lonely Monsters comes from Dunn's love of both horror comics and zombie cinema, both classic and new (the comic reflects elements of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, in that there is no explanation given for why the dead are rising, while the overall ambience of the book recalls the recent 28 Days Later and its sequel).
With a planned quarterly release schedule, the debut issue of Lonely Monsters features a beautifully lurid, color saturated cover, as well as some pages of preliminary sketch work, and a five page essay on zombie cinema (written by yours truly, who will hopefully be contributing a written piece to each issue - in Volume 2 I will be looking at the controversial subject of true crime memorabilia and serial killer artwork).
Lonely Monsters can be purchased from the book's official Cafe Press store (http://www.cafepress.com/lonelymonsters.197323224), and will also be available from select comic book and pop culture stores. You can also contact Matthew Dunn at his My Space page ( http://www.myspace.com/lonelymonsters) and keep up with developments at the Lonely Monsters Blogspot (http://www.lonelymonsters.blogspot.com/).
Copyright John Harrison 2008
