Picking up from where ‘Night of the Living Dead Volume 1: The Sins of the Father’ ended, we find Lizbeth, her brother Leland, and a handful of strangers holed up in a rundown hotel surrounded by zombies looking for fresh meat. The questionably sane hotel manager, Hubert, is taking pot shots through the window, shooting both zombies and terrified strangers looking for refuge. Several kilometers away, Lizbeth’s husband and children are trying to escape the city streets now overrun by zombies. With the setting refreshed for readers, Istin and Bonetti create an interlude in which to flesh out the secondary characters and reveal more of their personalities and histories. We discover that zombies are not the only danger. Hubert grows ever more unpredictable and trigger-happy. Lizbeth and Leland, trying to restore power to the hotel, discover that they are not the only ones walking the darkened halls. It is Mandy, however, paranoid and hallucinatory, who will become the biggest problem for the survivors. ‘Night of the Living Dead Volume 2: Mandy’s Demons’ is as visually beautiful as the first volume. Bonetti demonstrates his talent with highly readable panels that convey the psychology of the characters. His numerous board-filling panoramas deliver the horrific scenes of terror and chaos. Istin’s paced dialogue is tight and authentic with neither a word missing nor unnecessary. Together they focus attention on the principal theme of every panel to carry readers logically and effortlessly through the daunting story to the cliffhanger ending.
