Of all the biopunk horrors dreamt up already by Zac Thompson and Daniel Irizarri, Cemetery Kids Run Rabid #2 takes the cake with one fiend in particular:
Toad with a box cutter.
Sure, the same issue features the ferocious, snarling Prince of Coyotes, but there’s something unsettling about an armed amphibian. Likely because it’s a desecration of our innocence, a perversion of a good-natured creature that we never saw coming. (The frog appears as Maddy investigates a twisted childhood memory of her dead aunt, so that’s an added layer.)
Even though I can’t ever look at frogs/toads the same way ever again, it’s this core aspect that’s helped make Cemetery Kids Run Rabid so dang effective.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
In the last issue, the Cemetery Kids got used to their new normal, which meant a lot uneasy feelings as they tackled the mystery of just who or what is piloting Pik’s body after he escaped the game. Here, the kids play the game some more as they try and work through it all as life throws even more terrible wrinkles their way. For all the brutal beheadings and gnarly monsters across this title, I find myself increasingly compelled by this “mundane” aspect of the Cemetery Kids’ adventures.
Yet as juicy as their reality has proven already, it jumps a notch or two in this issue. Birdie has to deal with the grief that she’s failed her brother; Maddy reveals herself to be both a bad influence and someone with her own trauma; and Wilson, in his continued role as POV character, is going through a profound disconnect that’s also something of a personal reawakening. (Not to mention Pik’s ongoing trials.)
Irizarri may get all sorts of deserved credit for his action and horror (this issue’s battles feel especially thoughtful in their intensity and brutality), but it’s the fleeting glances and solemn emoting that’s prove as compelling. It’s those moments of sharp, vivid humanity that start turning Cemetery Kids from a fun, slightly gimmicky thing into this profound exploration of teenage life in 2025. It’s a pseudo-goal Thompson touched on in our recent interview, and Cemetery Kids really feels like a modern-day Kids.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
Only Kids felt a little over-indulgent — a film decidedly enthused with its own edginess and ability to shatter our collective perceptions regarding youth culture. Cemetery Kids feels earnest and unflinching in its depictions of depression, suicide, and, thanks to Maddy, drug use. (I really hope Irizarri made the pipe look like the gun from eXistenZ on purpose.) It shows us this process of growing up in the digital age, in the realm of the perpetual end times, with a grace, precision, and depth that’s not met by many other titles.
I’d be happy to never see the Cemetery Kids in action ever again, and there’s something about this near-future teen drama that has me so invested. (Shout-out once again to Irizarri, as the aesthetic of their world toes the line perfectly between cyberpunk vibes and the indescribable haze of our own world.)
Courtesy of Oni Press.
Quick Aside: I absolutely want to see the kids still in the game world. Because as the story develops elsewhere, that game world becomes a haven for the fun and nerdiness that informs the world. That, and it’s kind of a break from all that intense humanity, and to let some of these themes and ideas play out from a more traditional comics perspective that feels more visceral than intellectual. But I still think their real world is growing on me, and maybe that’s also got me re-evaluating a key theme in the nature of online life.
OK, where was I — right, teen drama. It all feels so deeply real, and these kids are trying to find truth when so much of their world seems obsessed with altered perceptions and mere wish fulfillment. Their struggles are made all the more robust because, advanced as their world key be, they’re going through the same kinds of struggles we all have (just modified). For my childhood, I didn’t go online until I was 10/11; these kids have been online as long as they’ve been alive.
And so why Cemetery Kids is very much interested in that dynamic — tracing the arc of our increasing disconnect amid the time of broadband — I can recognize enough of their struggles of simply wanting guidance or to suddenly feel less lost in the sea of events and energies they don’t yet understand. The technology may be different (shout-out AOL), but the cutting uncertainty is the same, and the Cemetery Kids are going through it in a way that’s artistically relevant but undeniably organic.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
If there’s one key aspect of this issue that concerned me, it was the developments surrounding the “Pik Problem.: I won’t spoil too much, but the Cemetery Kids do achieve something of a resolution in that regard. On the one hand, that element was always obvious enough — I think if that’s why you’re reading this book, you were always set for some mild disappointment.
Similarly, given the way my feelings have changed about the digital world versus reality, maybe having a deliberate mystery just gets in the way of all this rich humanity. (I also understand that, with just four issues, things had to get going from a narrative perspective.) But even if you’re at all invested in solving Pik’s mystery, you may still feel like it was a tad rushed, and that it didn’t really come off as fully cathartic. (If anything, the moment is a tad funny, especially with Maddy’s contributions, and I can almost appreciate that injection of emotional texture.)
Courtesy of Oni Press.
But rather than feel any kind of burden regarding this moment, I think all of my complicated feelings/insights just prove that Cemetery Kids doesn’t need big reveals, endless biopunk violence, and even traditional structured storytelling. (Still, I’m glad that’s all here!) No, put these kids in a room and let them feel the weight of it all, and I’ll tune in like it’s the g-d finale of M*A*S*H.
Because Thompson and Irizarri have given us something that’s also like a toad with a bug cutter: Quite specific but also rather intimate, it’ll cut you deep because it knows what it is, what it can do, and that you didn’t expect such lethality and proficiency. Cemetery Kids is clearly going for the throat, and you better enjoy your last few minutes of peace before this cyber-monster consumes you outright.
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