Comics Preview – Edge of Extinction: Day One

By Antony Esmond on March 24, 2015 • ( 1 )

Written by Baden James Mellonie
Art and Letters by Paul Peart-Smith
Cover and design by Stephen Sampson (also known as Steve Sampson)
Variant Covers by David Millgate and Ryan Brown
Published by Eighth Continent Publishing
28 pages – £2.99 / $3.99

The Story: Edge of Extinction: Day One opens on ‘Saturday, Day one – 6.59am’. Jason Mills is woken by his alarm clock in his average house in Bedford, England. He goes about his average daily routine, as we overhear reports on the news telling of serious outbreaks of violence throughout the country. He answers the door to the postman, who’s dying after claiming to have been bitten and the police arrive to investigate. They are followed by the forensics team who discover a human tooth in the wound…

The Preview: In the back matter of issue #1 Baden, the writer, tells how he wants to tell a story in a 24 style realtime narrative. This first part of the story is described as ‘Day One’ and it unfolds at a natural speed and deals with creepy portents. It also deals with real world events overlayed with the zombie threat from outside. It limits itself to a small setting: outside of the news, all we see is the main protagonist’s home and the street outside as the characters deal with the problems as real people do. We warm to them because of this.

The black and white art reminds me of early Dave McKean or Sean Phillips. Paul Peart-Smith has an interesting style that I can also see some Euro comics influences, especially in the faces. He pushes the story forward and it looks great.

My only small niggle with this first issue is that it seems a little ponderous – but this is probably because of the unfolding in real-time tactic the creators have adopted.

It’s a very good start and I’ll be interested to see where this is headed. Keep an eye out for it when it’s released soon. Some preview pages below…

• You can find the creators and pre-order a copy at www.edgeofextinction.co.uk or www.eighthcontinentpublishing.com

• You can find the writer Baden on Twitter @MelMellonie

• You can find the artist on Twitter @PaulPeartSmith and at his blog www.paulpeart-smithartspace.blogspot.com

Many thanks for reading.