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theochick's review
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Holy shit?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Gore, Domestic abuse, Child death, Death, and Physical abuse
cpersin's review
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Domestic abuse, War, Torture, Murder, Death, and Violence
Minor: Sexual assault
see_sadie_read's review
3.0
It took me a little while to digest Human Remains. I finished with a feeling of, "Welp, that's a thing I've read now." I don't know that I could have even said if it all came around to a salient point or not. However, as I sat on the experience a little while and thought on it, I decided that it did. (Of course it did.)
It's gory and touches on any number of heavy, trauma-inducing subjects. (I think a trigger warning wouldn't be out of place for this one.) But watching as the characters slowly move from shocked and horrified to numb and blasé in the face of countless deaths is poignant. (Can I say a book with roughly 2 million panels of humans being violently dismembered was poignant?) But what does it mean to be human, how much will we give up to remain human, how much can we change and still be human are all important and thought-provoking questions this graphic novel seeks to answer.
I did think it took a long time to come around to those points and a few of the devices used to make them were a little ham-handed. But all in all I'll call this one a success.
It's gory and touches on any number of heavy, trauma-inducing subjects. (I think a trigger warning wouldn't be out of place for this one.) But watching as the characters slowly move from shocked and horrified to numb and blasé in the face of countless deaths is poignant. (Can I say a book with roughly 2 million panels of humans being violently dismembered was poignant?) But what does it mean to be human, how much will we give up to remain human, how much can we change and still be human are all important and thought-provoking questions this graphic novel seeks to answer.
I did think it took a long time to come around to those points and a few of the devices used to make them were a little ham-handed. But all in all I'll call this one a success.
novelbloglover's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.5
Book Review
Title: Human Remains: The Complete Series by Dearbhla Kelly, Peter Milligan & Sally Cantirino
Genre: Graphic Novel, Horror
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Western graphic novels don’t tend to work for me but I read one last month and it was good despite being a little confusing in places so I was hopeful for Human Remains. The opening to Human Remains was interesting as we are introduced to an Earth which has been invaded by creatures that kill people when they display emotions but it only does it in public places meaning they are safe within their homes. We see how this start when we meet our protagonists, Dax and Bisa as they are getting married and the creature invades but they survive. We also learn that the creature whatever it is ignores people under the age of 5 so children are safe from it but everyone else has had to learn to reign in all their emotions to the point where some people just can’t contain it any longer and willingly accept death in order to express themselves.
The story itself wasn’t anything overly complex but it did delve into the mindset of the people living with the arrival of this creature and what it does to people and how they survive through it. It isn’t about killing the monster or making it leave, even though they do capture it at one point in the story, it is more about the human survival aspect. Dax and Bisa were amazing characters but they aren’t the only characters we are following as we also follow a scientist and a priest during all this and see the various ways people are looking at the situation and how they are dealing with. The story is gory with lots of violent bloodshed because of these attacks but there are also light-hearted moments where we see people come together in ways that aren’t expected. I also really enjoyed the art style, while it wasn’t a style that I normally enjoy but it worked really well for the story it was telling. It also didn’t have a heavy dialogue element which seems to be very common in western graphic novels which I really enjoyed. Overall, Human Remains was an interesting story with a really nice art style and appealed greatly to the horror fan in me.
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