Crossed: Wish You Were Here Volume 1

Not that I don’t like the Crossed stories penned by writers other than series-creator Garth Ennis—David Lapham (Stray Bullets) is one the modern masters of hard-boiled crime oriented graphic fiction and of course Alan Moore (Crossed +100) is arguably the most important graphic novelist of the 21st century (and maybe the 20th, too), and the guys that picked up the series and its spin-offs (Delano, Gage, etc.) are no slouches at writing engaging, genuinely horrific apocalyptic fiction either—but for my money, Ennis’s grim realism and extreme black humor (Horsecock, ye left us much too soon!) is where the real party’s at. Having said that, I’m only two issues into the Wish You Were Here storyline, and I’m already feeling the Ennis vibe. Makes wonder if Simon Spurier brainstormed the plots and characters with Ennis or if he’s just that good at mimicking a fellow writers’ style. Whatever the case, WYWH is everything you want from the Crossed-verse, vivid, fleshed out characters and edge of your seat cliff hangers splattered against a sick, desperate world ruled by cannibal rapists. The best thing is that I’m only on book 5 of the main series and book 1 of +100, which means there’s still like 20 more volumes ahead of me! Am I sick for enjoying these images of atrocities? Of course I am! I’m human! And that’s what is special about these books, they show us, our species, at our worst... but that means that we have to be our best to survive. And unfortunately, just as in the real world, good does not always triumph over evil. Which is a refreshing break from the vast majority of comics titles, including the more adult-oriented publishers stuff, where the status quo is returned and resolution is had. The Crossed succeeds at breaking the happy ending rule, keeping us engaged with the constant tension of not knowing if/when our protagonists are gonna get the axe. Yeah, five stars. [and for those waiting for a tv or film adaptation, look no further than the movie Mayhem (2017). Zombie cult bonus: Glenn from The Walking Dead show stars...]

My stars are mostly for the art and coloring which are admittedly gorgeous. The story isn't bad but being that it all takes place on a tiny island it has more to do with character introductions and less to any progression. I'm hesitant to move on from here because this is volume one and the next available volume is three. This one ends at a spot where four of the residents will finally venture out so I'd hate to think I would miss that after all of the wait through this volume. Plus the writers and artists begin rotating after this one so I'll probably just cut my losses here and move on to something else. Its too bad too as there is a ton of potential going forward.

Wish You Were Here elevates Crossed to storytelling on par with The Road or The Last of Us. A world where only the worst of humanity can survive to call themselves human and innocence dies young. Spurrier writes an epic that spans four volumes and every page is worth the cash. Though some Crossed stories amount to little more than edgy gore fantasy, WYWH tells a tale of love and loss, shaky morality and what it truly means to call yourself human in a world where few of then are left. Surprisingly, survival comics are a sparse genre, but this woukd be at the top of the reading list if ever there was one. 10/10

Some of the writing was difficult to understand but I was still hooked and found it hard to get my eyes off the screen. Very gory ofc and the twists actually got me

The Crossed series was a pretty good series. Overall, I'd give it a 7.5/10. The "crossed" are similar to the infected in the 28 Days Later movies. Once infected, they just want to kill/sodomize any uninfected person. They retain their motor skills/memories so they can drive cars, shoot guns, talk, etc. The things I DID NOT like about the book/series were: 1. Some of the characters are from Ireland/Scotland and the authors wrote their dialogue in that way. It took away from the flow of the book because you're reading quotes and having to figure out what the person is saying. I understand why they wrote it like this, but it takes away from the flow of the book. 2. The protagonist (Shaky) is very flawed so it's hard to cheer for him. In one way it's nice he's not perfect, but he's not perfect to the point that you don't care what happens to him in the book. He does lots of selfish things. 3. 1/2 the book takes place in the present with 1/2 taking place in the past. The book switches between the two. This would be fine except for the main character (Shaky) is a writer so its shown by journal entries. After reading 4 books like this, it gets repetitive, old and kind of annoying. OK, NOW time for SPOILERS - This book is similar to "28 Days/Weeks Later" The infection spreads quickly (bites, body fluid, etc) . [Present Day] The protagonist (Shaky) and about 15 other survivors have been living on an island. They have occasional run-ins with the infected/crossed and lose members here and there. They end up coming across a colony of Americans who have formed a little community by docking several boats together. The crossed attack and kill everyone in that colony and attack the island and kill several survivors there too. In the end the last 7-10 survivors set a trap and kill all of the crossed who have been attacking/stalking them. The book ends with Shaky reuniting with his lost love. They have sex and then commit suicide while the survivors are left to rebuild their community and/or find a new place to rebuild. [Past] Shaky survives the initial outbreak and wonders alone until he comes across a small group of survivors led by an old (survivalist) man known as the gameskeeper. He treats everyone bad and sexually abuses one woman, but nobody challenges him because they know they will be lost without him. Shaky finally mans up and shoots the gameskeeper and leaves him for dead while him and a nun (his love interest) flee. The nun ends up getting infected at one point, but since she's a nice, loving person, she is able to control the other infected/crossed and protect Shaky. However, her nice personality ends up upsetting the crossed and they injure her and attack the survivors. She ends up meeting up with Shaky at the end and they make love and then blow themselves up.

This comic graphic novel whatever you wanna call it is in my opinion the foundation for the new movie 28 years later it’s very similar. I love the cross series. They’re very morbid. They’re very twisted. They’re very very different from most of the graphic novels that are available not for everyone, though I do think these things will skyrocket in value.

...dem ist crossed zu empfehlen. im grunde ist es nur eine neue variante der zombies/infizierten geschichten, aber eine sehr viel boshaftere und düstere. absolut nichts für leute, die bei splatter und abgrundtief makabrem und fiesen humor nicht schmunzeln können. die hier enthaltenen stories sind der abdruck eines webcomics. es wurde kritisiert, dass diese story nicht ganz so hart ist wie die vorangegangenen. das stimmt wohl, allerdings nimmt sich die geschichte hier zeit, und es formen sich durch die in sich abgeschlossenen kapitel sehr gut die figuren heraus, so dass ihr unvermeidliches ableben einem doch ein wenig näher geht. wer crossed mag, wird auch diese geschichten mögen, denn alles was die vorigen bände getragen hat, findet man auch hier wieder. der preis für ein tpb dieser qualität ist durchaus angemessen, die qualität gewohnt solide. insgesamt empfehlenswert, wenn man etwas abgründiges sucht.

Awesome new take on something that's been done time and time again. Excellent, can't wait to continue the series. 💪🏻

So I've read Spurriers work before, mainly his 2 hellblazer graphic novels and they were incredible reads so I was delighted to find out him and Ennis ( another brilliant writer - Preacher/ The boys/The Punisher ) were writers throughout the crossed many books. I've read the first 10 crossed books and these 2 writers stick out like a thumb being miles better than the rest. That said this wish you were here series is absolutely amazing. Easily the best crossed storyline going with Ennis close behind. The crossed series is basically torture porn and brutality off the mark with every book trying to out do each other on the violence and rape scenes. This series though, whilst also containing violence and rape, is easily less so than the others. And that's a nice change in my books as it was getting tedious. Spurrier can clearly write and his charactization is second to none. It's all about the story here. Remarkable read.

Deutlich weniger Gewalt und Sex in "Wish you were here", somit auch deutlich weniger Effekthascherei. Stattdessen eine Geschichte, die sich Zeit nimmt Charaktere einzuführen und deren Motive zumindest in Ansätzen zu erklären. Handlungshintergrund ist diesmal eine kleine Insel (genauer, die zu den Orkney Inseln gehörende Insel Cava) , auf die sich eine Gruppe Überlebender zurückgezogen hat. Das ist alles nicht neu, macht aber trotzdem Spaß. Wer unsicher ist, ob er "WYWH" der eigenen Comicsammlung hinzufügen will, kann sich sehr fundiert unter folgender Adresse eine Meinung bilden, da "WYWH" ursprünglich als Webcomic veröffentlicht wurde (und auch noch wird...): [...]