Dead High Yearbook (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Dead High Yearbook
Editors Velez and McVeigh combine nine overlapping stories about an ill-fated group of high-schoolers in this macabre graphic novel. The introductory and concluding stories provide the skeleton for the collection: a bemused group of newly dead are now staffers, working with permanent editors to create their own yearbook before they head off to various afterlives. The remaining stories, mostly created by different authors and illustrators, focus in on the horrific fates of each of the characters. In one of the most surprising and entertaining entries, "Head of the Class," a fiercely dedicated student won't let anything, even decapitation, get in the way of acing the SATs. More predictable is a bitter love-triangle showdown that takes out three teens at once in "Have a Nicey Icee Last Day." The entries themselves are uneven in quality, with several standard 1950s horror-comic plots easily overshadowed by their garish and engaging illustrations. In fact, it is the complete product itself that shines here, with a puffy faux-leather yearbook cover, bloodstained page corners, and endpapers that feature the characters lined up in yearbook-style photographs (typical and alive in the front, grotesque and dead in the back). If some of the individual stories are standard fare, many teens will nonetheless be appeased by the inspired packaging. Horror fans may yawn, but graphic-novel aficionados who might be less familiar with the tropes of the genre may find enjoyment in this collection.
