Zombie Makeout Club Vol 1: DeathWish

[NetGalley Advanced Copy Review]

From what I can tell, this manga (?) is from the Zombie Makeout Club clothing brand's webtoon: Deathwish. It doesn't take many pages for the heavy Junji Ito influence and deliberate emo Hot Topic horror aesthetic to ooze off the pages, filled to the brim with heavy thematic elements of suicide, body horror, gore, and overall existential dread. There is an explicit warning label on the backside, as I once again reiterate, this is a violent story that includes but is not limited to decapitation, blowing off one's jaw with a gun, limb dismemberment, plentiful killing, and various forms of grotesque mutilation. Yet despite all that, there wasn't anything here that made me cringe or dread looking at in further detail, so for fellow gore hounds and fans of body horror films and such, you're not going to run into anything extraordinarily original here. Some nice visuals that keep the tone consistent, but I personally need more than just cool looks.

The premise without spoiling anything revolves around a group of young adults who find that they've all come back to life for unknown reasons; each of the four main characters all committed suicide, and each of them apparently have an inexplicable bloodthirst. There's not a lot of meat to the plot, as there is a clear emphasis on style over substance thus far. As I read through, I got the overwhelming sensation that the author and artists were more interested in the aesthetic of the edgy characters and violence, than actually piecing together a coherent narrative with world building. I don't mind the art style—quite the opposite—as it's more so the lack of story that holds this back from reaching a better result. It felt as if each page was just another moment to show off someone being sliced and diced, or shot up in relation to the underlying suicidal foundation of each main character. There is certainly potential for growth here—as many manga take a few volumes to really get the ball rolling—all of which will be further benefitted from giving the readers a better perspective on the world these character inhabit and perhaps some more clear rules to their undead dilemma.

The copy I was granted to read by the fine folk at NetGalley was the entirety of volume 1, which is comprised of 168 pages, and is set to be released on November 22, 2022.