What Happens When Your Beautiful Haven Shatters?

What Would You Do If Your Haven Falls Apart?

This wonderful comic, written by Tate Brombal and drawn by Jacob Phillips, drew me in with its cover, and honestly, I felt comfortable exploring a new medium through a familiar genre and monster. It was one of the first comics I read, and I didn’t expect such an emotional journey where identity had me cheering, and at the same time, shattered. While it’s a horrifying zombie story, it’s for reasons entirely different from the usual zombie stories I’ve experienced, as it’s a queer horror, where everything’s explained because of the protagonist’s

It’s centered around Jack Chandler, the sole survivor of his rural community during a zombie apocalypse, and shows the reader what happens when everything, and everyone, you love succumbs to a horrible illness that turns them into husks of who they once were.

What’s very fun, interesting, and endearing is that the reader is able to empathize why Jack can’t accept the death of his beloved. Grief is hard, as you have to accept that they’re gone, but for Jack, this is especially hard when they’re still breathing in front of him, well, sort of.

There are two narratives to this story: the one with action as survivors stumble upon Jack’s zombie riddled town, and the other, where the reader gets a better understanding of why Jack goes to unimaginable lengths, specially given the world’s post-apocalyptic setting, to keep everyone alive-ish.

There will be spoilers, but only a little. You have been warned.

Exploring Jack’s Story in Everything Dead & Dying: The Tragedy of Jack

Jack’s madness is shattering. He grew up as a gay man in a rural community and faced discrimination because of his sexual orientation.

But while he did face his hardships, eventually, he accepted himself, and those around did as well. He married Sam and adopted a sweet little girl with him named Maizie, and lived a relatively peaceful life until everyone around him got sick. While he didn’t understand the sickness, especially why it didn’t affect him, he tried his best to take care of his family.

While it’s not exactly shown how he was able to manage everyone after they turned into zombies, he kept them fed every single day. Routine kept his mind sane, or at least, moving. It’s particularly true that, when faced with immense stress, people tend to fall back into something familiar, and that includes creating a routine.

But Jack’s not the only one following a routine, as the zombiefied version of those he loves continues to do what they loved to do when alive. His daughter always greets him in the morning right at his bed, although with growling and covered in blood. The milkman greets him at his door, but instead of giving him milk, Jack is the one that gives him something: bloodied guts to eat.

But we get to see Jack’s perspective from time to time, and through his eyes, they’re alive and well.

The Outside World: When The Outside Horror Breaks In

Reality shakes up Jack’s small community when outsiders arrive in his town, and they don’t see the zombies as nice country folks, but as the dangerous, and aggressive, zombies they are. It’s during this time when Jack begins to wrestle with the idea that those he loves are truly gone, although, more likely, forced into accepting it.

These outsiders don’t know, and don’t care, about the town’s history. They’re in search of a town to settle in, to expand their base, as they’re scouts, and a farm town like that is not only away from the chaos but rich in resources. But this part of the story isn’t explored.

This story’s focus is on Jack, and while there’s some world-building done, such as the outsiders talking about expanding or the mistrust that’s on the leader, it feels like mentioned for minimal world-building, and mostly for pacing.

Not only is it beautifully written, but beautifully depicted. I walked into this story only knowing how pretty the art is and felt shattered with every issue that I read. It reminded me of the third episode of The Last of Us “Long, Long Time” where it’s centered around a gay man coming to terms with being gay, developing a relationship with a man in a post-apocalyptic setting, and then seeing them die, and how that affected them.

This comic is a must read for someone looking for an emotionally heavy story about grief and identity from the perspective of a gay man during a zombie apocalypse. Personally, the action parts were the weakest part of the story, as it hinges on Jack, so anything unrelated to Jack felt very uninteresting, which is specially true when you step back and realize that the other characters introduced don’t have weight in themselves, but on Jack.

Every decision made by the outsiders impacts Jack, and that’s what the reader is invested in, because that’s all we truly know when reading the story. This isn’t a bad thing, and it’s the reason why Jack’s story broke me, it’s just something I noticed. The outsiders did have their personalities, somewhat riddled with tropes, which made them somewhat endearing, and made Jack seem more human, more broken.

Something to also have in mind is that it’s basically a short story, with it only being five issues long, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick this one up.