EXCLUSIVE preview: FROM THE ASHES #1

Is there anyone who doesn’t like post-apocalyptic fiction?

Looking back at the past decade in comics, there haven’t been a surplus of successful ongoing comics series. In fact we can think of only a handful. Of that handful, perhaps the two most durable and entertaining are THE WALKING DEAD and Y: THE LAST MAN. (Yes, Y was a maxiseries, but it ran more or less monthly for a long time and its collections continue to sell at an astonishing pace.) What do both these books share? Why, survival in a post-apocalyptic landscape of gruesome clarity, of course. It’s an old yarn, but one that clearly resonates with readers, as they came back month after month for both series — and THE WALKING DEAD has become Image’s cash cow.

To the comics bookshelf of ruined worlds, we can now add another, highly unusual entrant, one which, we think, amplifies and examines the whole genre. In Bob Fingerman’s FROM THE ASHES, we see the personal story of two people — based on Fingerman himself and his wife, Michele — as they traverse the landscape of a ruined New York City. It’s savage, it’s narcissistic, it’s scary and it’s also very, very human. You may have seen a similar situation before, but trust me, you’ve never seen it like this. If Woody Allen and George Romero teamed up, you might get something like FROM THE ASHES…

FROM THE ASHES #1 (of six) debuts May 13th from IDW. You can read Fingerman’s blog on the series here, with background info and even more on the joys of destroying the world.