A review by novelbloglover
Human Remains: The Complete Series by Sally Cantirino, Dearbhla Kelly, Adrian F. Wassel, AndWorld Design, Peter Milligan

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.5

 

Book Review 

Title: Human Remains: The Complete Series by Dearbhla Kelly, Peter Milligan & Sally Cantirino 

Genre: Graphic Novel, Horror 

Rating: 4.5 Stars 

Western graphic novels don’t tend to work for me but I read one last month and it was good despite being a little confusing in places so I was hopeful for Human Remains. The opening to Human Remains was interesting as we are introduced to an Earth which has been invaded by creatures that kill people when they display emotions but it only does it in public places meaning they are safe within their homes. We see how this start when we meet our protagonists, Dax and Bisa as they are getting married and the creature invades but they survive. We also learn that the creature whatever it is ignores people under the age of 5 so children are safe from it but everyone else has had to learn to reign in all their emotions to the point where some people just can’t contain it any longer and willingly accept death in order to express themselves. 

The story itself wasn’t anything overly complex but it did delve into the mindset of the people living with the arrival of this creature and what it does to people and how they survive through it. It isn’t about killing the monster or making it leave, even though they do capture it at one point in the story, it is more about the human survival aspect. Dax and Bisa were amazing characters but they aren’t the only characters we are following as we also follow a scientist and a priest during all this and see the various ways people are looking at the situation and how they are dealing with. The story is gory with lots of violent bloodshed because of these attacks but there are also light-hearted moments where we see people come together in ways that aren’t expected. I also really enjoyed the art style, while it wasn’t a style that I normally enjoy but it worked really well for the story it was telling. It also didn’t have a heavy dialogue element which seems to be very common in western graphic novels which I really enjoyed. Overall, Human Remains was an interesting story with a really nice art style and appealed greatly to the horror fan in me.