FVZA Pursues Brooding Underworld
It all started with a website. Maybe it was a hobby, maybe it was a joke, but it all started as pixels and megabytes on a webpage. Officially located at www.FVZA.org, this site was and still is better known as the internet location of the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency, courtesy of one Richard S. Dargan. Cleverly portrayed in a realistic light, the site contains articles and mythical descriptions of a range of supernatural beings from vampires, to zombies, to werewolves. Deliberately written in a serious light, it was this website that was to serve as an inspiration to one wildly dark piece of literature.
In the autumn of 2009, Radical Publishing unveiled the first issue of a three-part series, using the same name as its internet kin. Individual issues are extremely difficult to find in stores and it wasn’t until this year that Radical released the trio of books in a trade paperback format. Behind wordsmith David Hine, you’ll find nothing short of a carefully crafted, morbid story of a highly secretive government group known as the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency. With figurehead and experienced fang guru Dr. Hugo Pecos at the story’s center, Hine slowly unravels the agency’s revival, its new recruits (two of which are his grandchildren), and a vampire-hatched plot to unleash a zombie virus upon the masses.
David Hine’s ability to tell a story successfully portrays a collage of emotions amidst a conversely intelligible forefront. He has a knack for being able to draw readers in deep, so much to the point that they can and will feel sympathetic to even the most grotesque and tormented of creatures. In addition, Hine is equally as crafty to throw in a few twists and turns as the FVZA storyline takes readers into an abyss of humanity, beyond points of no return. These unexpected developments in the plot seamlessly gel with the existing path the characters have traveled.
A comic book’s writing is paramount. Without at least a fair level of quality in this area, the publication is as good as kindling. But, should you be so fortunate as to already have this key attribute in place, adding a good artist is just a bonus. Adding an amazing artist is pure publishing bliss. The pages of FVZA are beautifully rendered, courtesy of artists Roy Allan Martinez and Wayne Nichols. It is a visual layout that is nothing short of extraordinary as the finished artwork looks more like brushstrokes than pencil lines. Whether the scene is of a zombie’s fiery demise or a desert landscape at sunset, Martinez and Nichols masterfully accomplished the moods at hand.
While this isn’t exactly a brand new book, FVZA is one that is without a doubt worth a read, and since it comes from a smaller press company, it was a no-brainer to promote this 2010 book while giving our readers a heads-up on what they could be missing. FVZA plays out like a film and maybe that’s one of the reasons I was so drawn to it. It is without question one of the high watermarks of Radical’s titles. There was no putting this down as conspiracy fills the land of the undead with Dr. Pecos’ team hunting the incisor-favored baddies on their own territory.
To buy your copy of FVZA, head over to Radical’s website at:
http://www.radicalpublishing.com/shop/shop-browse/36-fvza
To check out the site that started it all, you’ll find the FVZA’s home on the web here:
http://www.fvza.org
Wow! Looks awesome!