Foreword
Black Tide Rising is a terrific graphic novel that serves as both an allegory for our current COVID nonsense, as well as graphically (pardon the pun) depicting what a real viral pandemic would look like, as opposed to the pitiful one we have currently had our daily lives destroyed over. John Ringo's novel has provided a perfect twist on the zombie apocalypse trope that feels more possible than The Walking Dead, and more visually exciting than Night of the Living Dead, and Brett Smith and his team have brought it to life in the graphic novel format, which makes you feel like you are watching a great John Wick movie rather than painfully slogging through one of Stephen King's lame recent works. I cannot WAIT for the next installment, and you won't be able to wait either. It also makes a better argument for the necessity for America's 2nd Amendment than any politician has ever done.
It is great to see conservatives step up to the entertainment plate and take a mighty home run swing. Black Tide Rising strikes a blow for individual liberty and freedom, which is the only thing that stands in the way of the tyranny we are seeing established in the West, after its murderous run in Europe and the Far East. Pick it up, have fun, and absorb its deeper message: Fight back now, or be overrun by zombies—as has already happened in Los Angeles.
—NICK SEARCY
International film and television star featured in Terror On The Prairie, Capitol Punishment and the Emmy award-winning series, Justified
My first reaction when I opened this graphic novel was, "Not another Zombie story!" Let's be honest; I read comics to escape reality and Zombies are a nearly perfect metaphor for the city I'm living in, with sprawling Garcities and random mayhem super-charged by drug-fueled, untreated psychosis. And as a gamer, I usually prefer the kind of enemies that you have to out-think and out-game. Zombies have always scared me more than I wanted to be scared for some reason, and I can't help but imagine the stench of a zombie apocalypse.
But, as I read more of Black Tide Rising, I realized that this was something different. There was something refreshing in the art, the story, and the characters. The family . . . they actually care about each other and show it! Who thought we'd see characters like that again?
You see the great world we've had (and can have again) under siege by chaos, but somewhere in there is hope, and that's why I responded to this story. I realized that the thing that's been missing from so much these days is the idea that we can fix the world. In other words, this graphic novel understands that in order to have anybody care about a zombie apocalypse, you have to start with a world that is worth saving.
Maybe we're moving from apocalypse to renaissance here. Something intangible permeates the art, the characters, the dialogue and, frankly, the layout.
And there's something else. I'm not going to say what it is, but see if you see it, too.
—FLINT DILLE
Writer, Game Designer, Producer - Video Games, TV, Films and Books