Bleeding Hearts #3, at its, well, heart, is about communication and what happens when we can’t. With a busted ankle, the mother of Rabbit is desperate to survive, and Poke is desperate to protect her, but the understandable lack of trust between the two drives the conflict for the entire issue and somehow delivers the most tense and interesting adventure yet. I’m not much of a horror fan, but the way this book is taking classic tropes and turning them on their ear has me hook, line, and sinker.
The first interesting thing this issue does is flip the script, literally. Poke is speaking in coherent, complete sentences, and pleads with the two survivors to stay put and stay quiet. He reminds the mother that she’s in no position to travel anywhere on her busted ankle, and that the horde is everywhere outside, they’ll be torn to ribbons if they leave. Every response from the mother is guttural and indecipherable. They’re nonsensical “Eeee’s” and “Skreee’s” that are lettered like an animal hissing them when cornered by a predator.
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After they’ve refused to take his advice, Poke barricades Rabbit and her mother in the school for their own protection. He leaves because he’s late for a meeting of the Zombie Council, a form of government that directs the horde. The two elder statesmen of the Council are Skin-Flakes-Off-Like-Permanent-Personal-Snow-Storm, and Bird-Nest-In-Head-and-Crown-of-Crows-Above, and the reason they called this summit to order was to discuss the nature of survivors, or live ones as they call them. Do they have consciousness? Are they any smarter than cattle? What value do they add to the world?
This additional twist on the classic zombie formula is a most welcome wrinkle. By giving them a hierarchy and a philosophical system that elevates the horde beyond just “brains are yummy”, the reader is forced to ask themselves some hard questions about this depiction of zombies. If they’re not mindless, what is their imperative? Are they systematically destroying a species they consider to be below them? If they’re not operating on an animalistic instinct to convert survivors, does that mean they’re actually committing genocide?
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There’s one scene towards the end of the book where Poke sees Rabbit’s mother with a decision to make, one she can’t come back from, and so he’s forced to make his own decision, also one he can’t come back from. If Poke can operate at that level of philosophical and moral determination, then so can the other members of the horde. If they have that choice and they choose to annihilate survivors, doesn’t that just make them evil? Bleeding Hearts is putting those questions out there without beating the reader over the head with them.
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It’s all pretty thought-provoking stuff delivered by more truly gorgeous art. Last month I was singing the praises of Stipan Morian for intricate detail work, and this month I want to sing their praises for shadows and shading. Several panels throughout the book use negative space from shading to create a surreal, hallucinatory feeling. There’s a lot of crosshatching done in a way that feels jarring and disorienting to the reader, while never being unclear. Matt Hollingsworth on colors and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou harmonize with Morian’s art, making the whole book sing.
Vertigo has been a home run since its relaunch, and Bleeding Hearts #3 has some of the best creatives in comics operating with a creative confidence that’s a joy to read. It’s a heartbreaking story of trust and communication between two parties that both desperately want the same thing, but can’t do it through anything besides action. It’s gorgeously brought to life, frantically paced, and bursting with heartache and thought-provoking questions. I cannot recommend this book enough.
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