Ronny Haze of Make A Path Presents has been a central member of The Walking Dead community for some time now as he not only runs his YouTube channel talking about The Walking Dead and other mediums such as movies and video games, he is also a comic writer and creator. Since The Walking Dead comic book series finished with issue #193 (Along with the Negan one shot coming in July 2020) , the majority of the fans of the series has been looking for their next post-apoclapyse story. I recommend everyone to check out Doomsday Kingdom as this series not only fills in the gap of a new story style than we are used to on The Walking Dead, it also has a new twist on the genre. Here is my review of the first volume titled The Feeding Post which collects issues #1-4.
First, I will like to say that artist James Milne did a great job with the art. I can tell from the first issue, to the rest of this volume that the artwork and coloring has improved. Granted that he had more time to do this, it came out very well and I am impressed with the amount of gore that was presented in these issues as well.
The story itself, starts normal, but gets very dark real quick. At the start of the issue, you will see the cover character in his full uniform at first asd he is named The Rider, but learn his backstory as the story goes on. This is a unique take as backstories are established on the first few pages at most times. But you will understand why he becomes this mysterious person on the cover. It keeps you engaged to wonder what he was like before the world changed. During his backstory flashbacks, You will learn that his name is Tristian and you will also see what lead to those changes as it just started as a normal day, and then by the afternoon, he had to take his daughter home from school as her fever got worse. She then passed away. He got very emotional after this and I could feel his pain since I would react the same way if my child passed away like this at an early age.
The other characters like Katie and Lazaro are likable too. And I believe that Ronny Haze thought of how he will keep their scenes interesting even though they are in the story at a minimal time for this volume and not have them there to be filler characters as they are central to the story too.
By the end of this volume, I started to think that the story has really fleshed out how civilians would react to a situation like this. It was not rushed as both Ronny and James made sure to have as much time possible to showcase how slowly it will be for the world to end instead of a fast rate. You also see people doing things in this world that they normally would not do if the world was not ending especially at the last half of the volume. I cannot go too much in detail of certain plot twists, but they will be shocking and I have faith that it will pay off.
There are some scenes in this volume that caught my attention even for the small moments. The first one I can think of is when one person literally **** their pants. I gasped as I turned the page for that to be revealed and I laughed afterwards because that must have been an easter egg to one of Negan’s lines. Follow that up with the next scene where everyone’s phones are ringing and the masked bandits begin to ask for everyone’s food as they were dressed in armor. There is another scene in this book that is so bloody, that it took me a few minutes to process what just happened as I was looking at the entire one page panel. Also, there is something really disgusting that happens too and it is more disgusting than the guy that crapped his pants and this happens after a character turns. You might want to be prepared to not eat as you are reading this volume because there are some unthinkable moments that happen that your stomach will not handle. I can handle gore since I love horror, but I was not prepared for that particular panel.
Overall, I enjoyed this nice twist to the apoclapsye genre as it was something I did not expect at all. Ronny Haze and James went out of their way to create an original story while also making sure to not make it a repeat of stories everyone already heard of, or read before. From the first issue, you will find out why the volume is titled The Feeding Post. And by the end of the fourth issue, you will understand the meaning behind the name. Ronny Haze has stated that each volume will have a different theme and story and I so far like the direction the story is going. Being a content creator for YouTube and making an comic at the same time was quite unheard of a few years ago until Ronny Haze started this project and I am happy to see it’s growth and success.
You can buy Doomsday Kingdom via Indiegogo on this link.
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