Written by: Mark Kidwell
Art by: Kyle Charles
Publisher: Image
’68: Homefront is Mark Kidwell’s newest variation of zombie comics centered around the sixties and the Vietnam War. In this four issue arc, Kidwell and team are focusing on how the zombie apocalypse is invading the United States, starting with a small town in Pennsylvania. Kidwell has split this particular arc into two parts. This issue is the first part of “Peece and Love.”
The comic begins with three cheerleaders on their way to a pep rally: the foul mouthed and loose Sue, pot smoking Shelly, and sweet homecoming queen Jennifer. The girls are hardly aware that the people they are passing as they barrel down the high way are the living dead, and they are almost entirely un-phased as they pass by the opposing high school’s entire football team dead on the side of the road in a wrecked school bus. It was a little unbelievable to me that the girls were not only oblivious to the zombie they about ran over, but that they moved on from the tragic and bloody scene of the bus and back into their own drama so quickly.
Kidwell does a great job of creating the 1960s setting and making it convincing without pulling out too many stereotypes or explicitly stating that the story is taking place in the ‘60s. The biggest indicator of time in this issue are the outfits the characters are wearing, at least until the end when Greaser Johnny tells Jennifer that he has enlisted to go to Vietnam.
The art in this book is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a zombie comic: it’s dark, lines are thick and sketch-like, and there’s a gritty quality to it. I am not familiar with the other ’68 Zombie comics, but I assume the art and story here are consistent with the rest of the series, because Kyle Charles has the zombie art style down pat.
’68: Homefront is a quick, entertaining comic. It doesn’t appear to have any themes or plot points that make it stand out from other zombie comics, besides its setting in the midst of the Vietnam war as opposed to modern times, but it’s a solid comic, especially if you are a fan of zombies.
