{"id":15172,"date":"2016-08-27T09:30:51","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=15172"},"modified":"2016-08-27T10:30:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-27T10:30:47","slug":"black-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2016\/08\/27\/black-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Black River"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy <\/strong>Josh Simmons<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-833-5<\/p>\n

After far too long way, cartoonist Josh Simmons (<\/strong>House<\/strong>, <\/strong>Jessica Farm<\/strong>, <\/strong>The Furry Trap<\/strong>) returns with another masterfully monochrome comics epic: a poetically potent, visually enthralling, ferociously challenging tale some might reasonably call a horror story.<\/p>\n

However, despite its post-apocalyptic setting and milieu and constantly rising death-toll, <\/strong>Black River<\/strong> has more in common with the arduous privations and torturous trials of endurance and personal choice typical of a Jack London adventure novel than a slasher flick, serial killer slaughter or even last ditch stand against the zombie horde du jour.<\/p>\n

Sacrificing plot to concentrate on character and experience, the story details how a band of people roam the wastes of Earth after the world ends.<\/p>\n

Incessantly moving forward, the motley mixed-up band of strangers hunt for scarce supplies in wrecked cities and outpost; staying one step ahead of whatever destroyed civilisation. Of course, even as they wearily trudge the length of the continent, scavenging for necessities – and even occasional, instantly abused luxuries like booze and drugs – they cannot stop madness finding them or death from picking them off one by one.<\/p>\n

Their years-long nomadic perambulation takes an even darker turn after they are all captured by a marauding band led by a charismatic sociopath called Benji<\/em>. These brutes have reverted to little more than true beasts, but solitary, traumatised Shauna<\/em> endures the worst atrocities they can commit before lethally turning the tables on them and leading the now solely female group back out into the wilds again.<\/p>\n

Years pass, battles are fought and the group thins as life winnows them down to nothing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Simmons doesn’t offer answers or explanations: this epic trek of unrelieved toil and raw survivalism is truly all about the journey and what happens next as the ever-shifting cast of desperately determined humans take life one day at a time, one step after another until the inescapable end comes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Black River<\/strong> is bleak, unrelenting and morbid, but Simmons is a fantastically perceptive creator and realises that even in such an existence, there must be moments of rude hilarity or short-lived contentment and even unexpected joy to balance the constant fight for one more day\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

A saga of grim attrition in a world without hope, <\/strong>Black River<\/strong> perfectly displays the best and worst of human nature and is a tale which, once read, will never be forgotten\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2015 Josh Simmons. This edition \u00c2\u00a9 2015 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Josh Simmons (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-60699-833-5 After far too long way, cartoonist Josh Simmons (House, Jessica Farm, The Furry Trap) returns with another masterfully monochrome comics epic: a poetically potent, visually enthralling, ferociously challenging tale some might reasonably call a horror story. However, despite its post-apocalyptic setting and milieu and constantly rising death-toll, Black … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Black River”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[66,105,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror-stories","category-mature-reading","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3WI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}