A Last Goodbye: An Obsession To The Finish

Post-apocalypses and I do not have the best track record. Or maybe that’s just recent times with Finale and The Walking Dead. So imagine the pressure I feel when I get a request to cover a one-shot from the artist of Bro-D. The publisher Band of Bards has just become a co-op, something that I hope could curb a lot of problems in the comic industry. Thankfully, A Last Goodbye manages to avoid my gripes with this genre with something to ground it.

A Last Goodbye: What A Post-Apocalypse Needs

My problem with post-apocalypses is how exhausting they can get. All of the despair from people babbling on about it starts to sound the same. Like some kind of bad soap opera full of pessimistic and clunky dialogue. Meanwhile a cure for hopelessness from something absurd just doesn’t do it for me, especially when you treat it seriously. Yet everybody else seems to find something to like about that. It felt like I was becoming one of those misanthropes who say: everything sucks so why bother getting involved?

But A Last Goodbye and a few post-apocalypses like Fallout and Zom 100 remind me why the above isn’t everything. Putting out your best effort to live your best life with direction makes living in a world worth it. As long as something’s feasible and within reach.

Tragedy or Bliss?

Take for example the hero who spent his life doing good and it looks like it was all for nothing. Everybody’s he loved is dead and it looks like the US is going to be uninhabitable. All that he’s got left is a dog and a journey to his old house. Ben Humeniuk gives this man a sense of paranoia and despair in close ups of his face. The empty landscapes full of civilization’s ruins are scary enough. But a forest full of leafless trees looks like walking into a cage.

Within this cage are two possible paths for what’s left of humanity. One is a mutant cannibal cult holding onto a twisted version of the Revelation. The other is a village of subterranean people who thrive in environments that the old civilization never thought of. It’s pretty decent turmoil the hero faces, be consumed by the old world or fight for a new path forward.

So when the reader reaches the ending, they can’t help going back and forth to see if the hero made the best choice. But I think this is the point Travis B. Hill makes, the effort for a chance to thrive is worth it. Even if it’s not the way you were hoping it would.

A Last Goodbye To Doubts

There are some things I haven’t touched yet. The pacing and dialogue are perfectly aligned with simpler evocative artwork for emotional beats. As for the coloring, flashbacks in light-blue green show a perfect blend of comfort and sadness. It evokes nostalgia that motivates characters into action. Sometimes that’s inter-spliced in the yellow-brown present to give minor characters like Sam more memorable. Not to mention the efficient use of recycling with slightly different effects sells it two-fold. Like when Sam tears up fighting a cultist compared to the dry-eyed panel, showing sadness and relief from his past.

All-in-all, it’s a very memorable experience that’s good to come back to. 8.5/10! You can find it in the Bard Shop, maybe GlobalComix.

Thanks for coming to the end and as always, remember to look between the panels.