In GRIMM SPOTLIGHT: CINDERELLA VS. ZOMBIES, available from Zenescope Entertainment on October 20th, 2021, Cindy Monroe aka Cinderella heads to the Great White North for a fresh start, but a failed movie producer’s wish brings about a zombie apocalypse, cutting Cindy’s fresh start short.
The Details
- Written By: Dave Franchini
- Art By: Jordi Tarragona
- Colors By: Jorge Cortes
- Letters By: Taylor Esposito
- Cover Art By: Igor Vitorino, Ivan Nunes (cover A)
- Cover Price: $5.99
- Release Date: October 20, 2021
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Was It Good?
I mostly liked this one-shot. The art’s great, the story concepts fit very neatly into the magical realms of Zenescope, and the zombie theme hits at just the right time for Halloween. However, there are a few spots that are either a down point or not your cup of tea.
File this one-shot under the “Tongue-In-Cheek Gory Horror Comedy” category ala Shaun of the Dead (2004). Cinderella is trying for a fresh start in a new town to live a “normal” life when a zombie plague breaks out. You get a decent amount of zombie horror with organs flying everywhere and not a lot of fluff to pad the setup. Readers are dropped straight into the action after a few brief pages of setup and prologue to remind readers what Zenescope’s version of Cinderella is all about.
The horror is spot on for this type of comic, but the humor can be hit or miss. It’s a farce, so how well the jokes do or do not land depends on your tolerance for absurdity. Here, the jokes mostly land. There were a few spots where the punchline didn’t live up to the setup, but humor is never easy.
That said, the jokes that don’t work rely on the main character, Cindy Monroe aka Cinderella, to nail the delivery by offsetting what she says with her endearing qualities. Bluntly, Cindy is not a nice person. She’s self-centered, self-absorbed, ditzy, and frequently annoying. It’s tough to get behind a character with few redeeming qualities besides her looks. When the nastier one-liners come out, you don’t get the contrast between a sweet person saying nasty things. It comes off as ruder than funny. This point could be chalked up to personal taste rather than an objective critique, but some of the jokes may have landed better if Cinderella wasn’t such an awful person.
Putting Cindy’s personality aside, Tarragona’s art is perfect for this type of comic. The zombies, flying organs, and sword-slashing splatter get just close enough to cartoonish to make you feel okay at laughing at people dying. Cortes’s colors are great, and special props go to Esposito for the unenviable task of coming up with different ways for zombies to make groaning sounds.
Overall, this is an amusing one-shot with great art and an enjoyable story for a Halloween chuckle or two.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Cindy Monroe aka Cinderella arrives in Toronto to get away from the baggage of her old life. She’s looking for a fresh start away from monsters, magic wielders, and jealous do-gooders like Skye Mathers not giving her the respect she deserves (here words, not mine). Cindy heads to a first date with a life coach/guru to kick things off right.
The date isn’t going well, so Cindy excuses herself to the bathroom to freshen up. Before you can say “there’s somebody in here!”, she comes out to find the restaurant overrun with zombies. As much as she wants a fresh start, it seems fate has other plans. Cindy makes a quick change and grabs her sword to hack and slash her way through the zombie horde.
When she gets outside, Cindy sees a green glow coming from the roof of a nearby building. Cindy mows down the undead to get to the building. Along the way, she meets an assortment of zombie hunters that look oddly familiar (Negan/Rick from The Walking Dead, Alice from Resident Evil, etc.), but all of them are poop heads and just wind up getting in Cindy’s way.
Cindy eventually makes it to the source of the green glow. She finds a skeezy, overweight mama’s boy with a grudge against Hollywood producers for not greenlighting his “brilliant” script ideas. We conclude the issue with a flashback to how the zombie plague started, a pitch for the worst movie ideas you’ve ever heard, and Cindy going on a second date (that also doesn’t go well).
Final Thoughts
GRIMM SPOTLIGHT: CINDERELLA VS. ZOMBIES is full of zombies, flying organs, blood-splattering, and more than a few scathing pokes at Hollywood and the zombie genre as a whole. The art is a perfect match for this type of story, and the humor mostly hits, but the main character is a little too unlikable to get behind or root for.
Score: 7/10
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