Assorted Crisis Events has been nothing short of innovative in pushing comics storytelling to new heights while sharing deeply empathetic characters dealing with a world where sci-fi happenings can inflict the most weirdness on anyone. Case in point, Assorted Crisis Events #7, which features a single man named Tom who must deal with the constant influx of dead bodies of himself.
If there was an issue in this series about making lemonade from lemons, this is it. The story opens with Tom in bed, sleeping, only to realize someone has thrown their arm over him. It’s himself, only a dead version of himself that’s less alarming and more annoying. Writer Deniz Camp then takes us through the oddly sad but cumbersome day of Tom, who buries himself in the backyard. We soon learn he finds dead versions of himself in the strangest places, and has annoyed his neighbors royally when a body of himself showed up in their knitting room. How gaudy.
We then witness Tom cleaning up a second body for the day, driving it to the dump, and throwing it in a pile of trash. Tom feels a bit numb about it, and we learn later that the first body that showed up got a proper burial. But with multiple bodies showing up in a day, how realistic is it to pay so much for a funeral?
Just another day for Tom.
Credit: Image
The general idea of this one-shot adventure is compelling, thanks to its impact on Tom’s daily life, including his job and even getting an ice cream. Meanwhile, most people are aware of his problem and shrug it off. He can’t seem to get any help, suggesting this story’s deeper meaning is about people who need help, yet everyone turns a blind eye. This culminates in Tom making the best of the situation as bodies pile up faster and faster.
There’s also a bit of a mystery regarding the bodies, as Camp hints that each one seemed to have a whole life, dying in different ways and being found with different expressions. These aren’t just clones from a vat, but real Toms somehow being transported around Tom as he lives his life. That said, much like previous chapters in this series, there aren’t really any answers, and instead, it’s a sci-fi concept tethered to daily life.
Eric Zawadzki leans into the cartooning nature of his style, with an almost caricature vibe to Tom and his many bodies. It helps lighten the macabre mood of the book, especially in one great full-page splash of Tom driving down the road with several bodies tied to the roof and hanging out the windows. There’s an interesting use of stark color tones, like purple on a pile of bodies in front of Tom in one scene, the surroundings all in teal, which helps highlight Tom, colored realistically. This effect is used throughout the issue, helping draw focus and make scenes feel contemplative.
Assorted Crisis Events #7 is a devastatingly inventive standalone chapter that turns a bizarre sci-fi nightmare into a quiet, aching meditation on isolation, emotional burnout, and being unseen by the people around you. Deniz Camp once again proves that this series thrives on taking absurd concepts and grounding them in painfully human experience, while Eric Zawadzki’s expressive, color-driven art finds beauty in the grotesque. It’s unsettling, funny in the darkest ways, and deeply empathetic; a reminder that sometimes the weirdest stories hit the closest to home.
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