Nineteen odd years ago a fungal parasitic outbreak killed or infected almost the entire human population. Those who have somehow survived or been born post epidemic are living within military-run quarantine zones. However not everyone is pleased with the current arrangements, and a number of groups have risen with their own agendas. Among the dissent groups is one known as the Fireflies, led by Marlene. Living in a quarantine zone is 13-year-old Ellie who is unhappy with the orphanage she is assigned to and her future prospect as a soldier for the military. She meets fellow orphan Riley, who has dreams of joining the Fireflies. Ellie reluctantly joins Riley in an attempt to track down the Fireflies, which naturally involves more than a few misadventures and facing the dangers of the fungal zombie outbreak. Not surprisingly when our duo meet up with Marlene and the Fireflies, its not quite what they expected. Marlene knows a whole bunch about Ellie and her mother!

There’s four individual comics in The Last of Us: American Dreams which contain approximately a hundred pages. Everything is in a colour that will have you turning the pages as Ellie and Riley discover that the remnants of the civilisation they live in might not be quite what it seems. There’s a feeling of decay throughout the graphic novel that will have readers believing they are in the end of times, though don’t worry there’s no Biblical edge here, simply people behaving badly in the face of the weirdest zombie outbreak I’ve ever seen. Let’s break the book down and see what might be lurking between the covers.

The events of the graphic novel take place before either the first game or the television series based on that game. Which is just as well I guess, as by now most horror punters are well aware of the Naughty Dog franchise which has manage to generate more controversy than your regularly splatter punk exponent can generate in a dozen years. Without getting into the whole situation the first game was a smash hit as gamers devoured the title, this went south in the second game as one of the lead characters was brutally killed off and Neil Druckmann and co went Mary Sue with the mainly female driven narrative. Not surprisingly sales of the second game tanked, and not to be outdone the television show followed suit, losing fifty percent of its audience by the end of the second season.

Neil Druckmann and Faith Erin Hicks deliver a script that threatens to repeat the mistakes of previous outings in the franchise, but which manages to avoid the messaging that ruined previous outings. We learn Ellie lives in a draconian society, harshly ruled over by a military elite where everyone has their allotted place, and heaven forbid you would step out of line, retaliation is swift and brutal. She soon learns however that there is opposition to the current norm, and not everyone is adhering to the regimented life style, as demonstrated by Riley and a couple of other non-conformists that are living on the fringes of what passes for society in the world of Last of Us. Probably equally importantly Ellie discovers the Fireflies might be rebelling against the status quo but they have their own reality. The revolution might be here, but it just might not be winning the war. Through the novel Ellie discovers more people know about her than she had ever thought.

Faith Erin Hicks and Rachelle Rosenberg deliver pretty standard art for the graphic novel, it’s not good but then it’s not entirely amateur hour either. There’s some decent panels going down, but they are offset by some truly atrocious attempts at trying to illustrate the story. The art seems rushed, at times it should have been rejected, and to be honest I have a feeling that Hicks and Rosenberg are simply going through the motions rather than attempting to tell a story readers will like via the individual panels. I’m not an artist, have never drawn a single panel for a comic book published or otherwise, but by hell I can tell a half arsed job when I see one. To say I was disappointed in this aspect of the novel is an understatement, the paying public deserve a hell of a lot more than lip service in my tardy opinion.

I wanted to talk a couple aspects of the narrative before closing this one out. Firstly, the zombie, for want of a better word – infected? – outbreak that has engulfed humanity. I might not have a lot of good to say about The Last of Us and some of the hair brained avenues the franchise has gone down, but the whole fungal thing had me rocking out to a pretty unique take on the end of days. Sure we have something similar before from numerous sources, but within this franchise it’s been nailed. Just when you thought it was safe to go down the mall, the fungi of doom are waiting to pounce, great stuff. The whole concept should be just so much fevered dream, but somehow Druckmann makes it work. Pity the franchise didn’t simply focus on this aspect, rather than giving the public shite they really don’t want. For sure made me question my decisions on mushrooms for breakfast, and I’m not even about to mention Beef Patterson, as we are now calling Beef Wellington Downunder, do a google kids.

I also wanted to mention Druckmann’s depiction of society collapsing in and on itself to form pretty much military juntas as a method of protection and survival. With naturally people chaffing at their gun toting overlords. Is the scribe predicting things here? For sure recent film clips of ICE raiding Home Depot in Downtown LA very much called to mind events depicted in this franchise. Men with guns terrorising innocent citizens in the pursuit of supposed illegals, brings to mind those third world dictatorships we regularly get to decry. I for sure was enjoying picking the bones of the carcass of U.S democracy, all Trump now needs is some insane virus infected going on a rampage, well hello MAGA. Sorry digression here, all I really wanted to say is the writers toiling away in this franchise are certainly on the money with what might arise social wise from the collapse of the current order.

I’ve got The Last of Us, a remastered version of the game on our gaming review pile, which we will get to just as soon as we can get the mikes working again, so was more than happy to check out a graphic novel. The artwork might fall flatter than a flounder, and the story isn’t exactly giving me the chills or providing more than minimum entertainment value, but I was happy enough by book’s end. I’m not going to give a recommendation on this one, someone’s fevered dream of teenage girls isn’t my reading matter generally – shut up and keep your mind out of the gutter, but say if you were to run across the book on one of those online comic sites then check it out. Guess in the wash up I’m left wondering why all the effort on this universe, we have really only had one decent game, the rest has been pretty piss weak.