Review by Frank Plowright

As the title pretty much gives away, Graveslinger is another entry into the supernatural Western category with one good man facing the odds against foes who’d terrify most residents of the American West in the 1800s.

Frank Timmons is the undertaker who clears away the corpses of the hung in Gila Flats jail, but has history with some of those executed, who were responsible for the death of his wife. One night, though, his job doesn’t go as planned and the killers are unleashed back on Earth as zombies, except now Frank has the means to deal with them. The problem is there being 117 of them on the loose.

Shannon Eric Denton and Jeff Mariotte have a viable plot, but to begin with jump it all over the place in the telling. It’s meant to intrigue, but it annoys. Any hope of something developing is then sabotaged by artist John Cboins, who’s more concerned with individual illustrations than telling a story, making it even harder to work out what’s going on. As single illustrations in dark and sepia tones there is an appeal in that Ben Templesmith expressionistic style, but this isn’t good comics.

Perhaps in recognition of the situation, halfway through the art transfers to Nima Sorat who works in cartoon expressionism, so very much a contrast, but there’s no great improvement when it comes to telling a story.

Graveslinger appears to have been a project set up for the long term by the writers, but the art kills it surer than Timmons himself.