Eat The Rich: The Extinction Parade #3 Review

Editor’s Note: One last review of last week’s comics before the comic store opens…

There is an entire generation of Twilight fans who, after eight years of mooning over broody prettyboys who sparkle in the sunlight and chuck around pledges of eternal love like they’re trying to bubble to the top of a Ponzi Scheme based on the hard fucking of teenage girls, should be kneecapped and forced to read the third issue of The Extinction Parade, written by Max Brooks and drawn by Raulo Caceres.

There is also an entire generation of Keeping Up With The Kardashians fans who, after six years of squealing over the adventures of a yammering pack of B-grade starfucking sisters and their step-something who started life as an Olympic champion and is now visually indistinguishable from a C-List Batman villain, should be kneecapped and forced to read the third issue of The Extinction Parade.

This is because, even though the hook to get people on board with The Extinction Parade was that it was another angle on a zombie apocalypse by the guy who wrote the novel World War Z, it is instead really about vampires, who by dint of their eternal lives, are also the idle rich. And since Brooks is, as I am, a little too old to be a fan of either Twilight or the Kardashians, that means that he knows that vampires are irredeemable and detestable dicks.

The only downside is that this comic series places the vampires still in the Kardashians-on-the-news, Twilight’s-ruining-Comic-Con era of the zombie apocalypse. But the cracks in their perfect little lives are starting to show… and it is sweet.

The zombie apocalypse is in full swing, and human society is beginning to falter. As authorities try desperately to convince people to remain orderly, things are different on the streets, where cops are isolated and knuckling under to the zombie hoards. Meanwhile, the two female vampires we’re following through the disaster are treating the unrest like they’re Lindsey Lohan on the Autobahn in Pablo Escobar’s smuggling Lambourghini with stolen diplomatic license plates: since zombies don’t feed on vampires, they’re hunting in the open, taking out cops right in the middle of the street, before returning to their mansions at dawn and relying on their “Renfields” to keep the bills paid and the house in order. Their Renfield, Willem, is part of a long line of servants, as keeping the job in a single family keeps the vampires from the oh so boring task of recruiting someone to watch over them during the day… but Willem is a human who watches the news while the vampires sleep, which means that at least one person in the house knows what time it is. And the vampires are about to learn about what time it is… possibly by way of having to puzzle out a calendar to figure out when the electric bill’s due.

Of any issue of The Extinction Parade so far, this issue pushes the zombie apocalypse to the background. We see one poor cop get turned, but otherwise, the hordes are just referred to on the news and by the vampires… and believe it or not, this is a good thing. Because all the best zombie stories aren’t about the zombies at all, but instead use the zombies as a catalyst to tell a story about the people and culture in the middle of the catastrophe, and this issue is no different. The kicker is that the people and culture are rich, pampered, entitled vampires.

But Brooks has a double-blind going on here, because all the best vampire stories are commentaries on a culture’s decadence and dirty secrets – after all, Dracula didn’t sneak into Victorian bedrooms and ravage the virgins because 19th Century England was a non-stop public fuckfest. So in essence, Brooks is using zombies to examine vampires to examine modern decadence, personified by what the damn kids who won’t get off Frank Miller’s lawn would call “The One Percent.”

And Brooks uses the opportunity to savage those motherfuckers. Our two unnamed “protagonists” (At least I think they’re unnamed; I only have the second and third issues handy, and couldn’t find a name in either) could easily be Kardashians except for the fangs… at least I don’t think Kim Kardashian has fangs. If she did, Ray Jay would have looked a lot more uncomfortable in that video I saw on the Internet when I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and Googled “Kim Kardashian + deep”. But I digress.

My point is that these vampires are the textbook example of the popular perception of “the idle rich.” The first thing they do in the issue is openly defy law enforcement while knowing that they will face no consequences. We see them sleeping and partying while society literally (as opposed to figuratively or economically, at least since 2007) burns down around them. And they spend a lot of time talking about how much they need their Renfields: people they get to work for them through inheritance, force, or terror against their families.

Most haunting is the story how, in modern times, most vampires recruit via simple lines of bullshit that if they just work hard and apply themselves, they can rise up from the little people to become one of them… with no intention of ever allowing that to happen. And it is haunting because we are seeing these monstrous, man-eating characters making people subservient to them using the same line of crap that leads people to work 80-hour weeks and stay glued to their smart phones for work messages all weekend: that’s the American Dream. And the “Renfields”? That’s you and me, Bubba. And all of this subtext adds up to one hell of a meaty comic book.

Cacere’s art is what you’d expect for an Avatar Comics book featuring zombies and vampires. His stuff is fine lined and extremely detailed, from the facial expressions to the backgrounds – I don’t think there’s a single panel in this issue that doesn’t feature a fully realized background. His panel layouts are easy to follow, and there’s a nice bit of business in the opening pages contrasting humans dealing with the chaos on the street with Willem taking care of his pampered vampires that set the story’s tone right out of the gate. But be forewarned: this is an Avatar comic, which means that it is for adults, and Cacare delivers on that front. The vampire attacks are suitably gory and disturbing (check out the nightstand when Willem walks in to clean up after the vampires if you don’t believe me), and he draws a hell of a naked, blood-soaked vampire chick, so this book probably isn’t for everyone. However, it is a consistent style with what you’d expect from Avatar books, and I likes me some Avatar books. I liked it.

There is a shitload of cool stuff going on under the covers of this story… but it’s only there if you want it. On the surface, we have detestable monsters feeding on the weak while zombies tear the world apart – and Brooks does a solid job of making our two main vampires about as likeable as Madonna at a Miley Cyrus concert… so when the rug gets yanked underneath them at the end, you will be firmly and completely on the side of poor Willem, who barely even says a word through the entire issue. My only real quibble is that Brooks does such a good job making these vampires such douchenozzles that you want something a little worse than a pile of bills to happen to them. Tar and feathers would be fine… although I would find watching these bimbo vampires feeding on Chloe Kardashian and dropping dead of contact Type 2 Diabetes imminently acceptable.

This is one of the more satisfying comic books I’ve read in a few weeks. Give it a shot.