Daybreak - with Jon Hook
You’re not reading Daybreak from the sidelines. You’re in it. Jon Hook returns to Trade School to recommend Brian Ralph’s inventive zombie comic, where every line of dialogue is spoken directly to the reader as if you’re another survivor inside the story. It’s funny, unsettling, beautifully cartooned, and a great example of how comics can use perspective to do something a movie or TV adaptation simply can’t replicate.
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⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
00:08 Meet Jon Hook
00:08 Introducing Daybreak
01:01 Brian Ralph’s Cartooning Style
02:32 The Reader as a Survivor
03:57 Breaking the Barrier Between Reader and Story
05:09 Daybreak vs. Cave In
06:23 The First Edition
07:14 The Art and Tone
07:43 The Netflix Adaptation
08:23 Why You Should Read the Comic
09:27 Modern Mythos and Jon’s Plugs
09:51 Long Live the Legion Promo
10:24 CPOV Tag
Transcription
00:00
Welcome to Certain Point of View's Trade School, where each episode a different host talks about a comic book trade paperback that they loved and why they love it.
00:08
Hello again, this is John Hook and this is Trade School. I wanted to talk about something a little different, a little more indie. Very, very indie. In fact, I would say it's called Daybreak and it is both written and illustrated by Brian Ralph. And there's a little bit of a B about Brian on the back of the book, at least on the copy that I have. This is a. The first edition from 2013 and that Brian Ralph studied art at the Rhode Island School of Design. And he has done other comic stuff. Like there's one called Cave in that I have that is really awesome. And he's really a. I'm going to say he's a cartoonist where.
01:01
I don't know if you would really call a lot of the artists who are working in comics today, you know, strictly cartoonists per se, but Brian Ralph, he is a cartoonist and his work is just amazing. I love his line style, the imagery that he brings to the page and in his sequential storytelling. It is very much an indie, kind of an art house style, and it's really great. And so Daybreak is his depiction or his version of a zombie apocalypse. So it's really cool. And it's. We. We are following this character, which I will say it has been a while since I read this. Daybreak, unlike some of the other work that Brian Ralph has done in his other stories, like Cave In, Daybreak is a real story. Like, there's a lot of dialogue in this and I don't actually remember.
02:32
In fact, I don't think there is. Yeah, I'm flicking through the book right now. The. The entire book, all of the words are dialogue. There are no narration, word balloons, anything like that. Everything is dialogue. Everything designed as if the. The camera, where the reader is another survivor. When our protagonist is talking, he's talking directly to us as we are experiencing the survival with him. It's really cool. And. And yeah, it's just a really interesting story. I don't want to give any spoilers in this, so I'm going to be vague, but I will say that Daybreak is a really enjoyable zombie apocalypse story where you do feel like you are right there. He does a great job of removing the barriers where in many comics, as we're reading them, we're just an observer.
03:57
We're watching the television, we're watching a movie screen, we're seeing These characters, and there's the detachment. Not in Daybreak. In Daybreak, you're right there because the character, the protagonist is talking directly to us and we are participating with him. Those barriers are gone. Like, you feel like you are right there throughout the entire thing. So I, and I, of course, I didn't know that when I got it. I did have Cave in before this book and I guess I was expecting more of that. Which on the flip side of things, where this is very dialogue heavy, Cave in is almost. Has almost no words in it. Like, that's one of those art house, you know, cartoon style art books where the entire story is just visual. It's just sequential visual storytelling and you read through it and you're just, you know, experience.
05:09
So, you know, in Cave in, you just go through it like super quick because you're not really reading, you're just kind of immersing in the art. But here with Daybreak, you're reading and you're experiencing and you're pulled in because the reading is only dialogue, no narration. There's no voiceover, you know, in your head. It's. It's just you speaking to this character. And I, there might be a couple others that get introduced. But honestly, throughout this entire thing, it's just you and the protagonist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just flicking through this and yeah, it's really good. So Daybreak, I did check and if you just want to be able to get a copy like super fast, it is available on Amazon. So, you know, it's gettable. I don't know.
06:23
Like, I saw the COVID of the book that Amazon was, you know, advertising, and it's clearly this story. It's the same art, it's got the same creator's name, Brian Ralph, and everything. You can see the protagonist of the story on that cover. But it looks like it's a different edition, like it's a newer edition than the one that I've got. I did check and I'm kind of. I feel lucky that I've got a first edition from 2013 and it's. My copy was produced at like digest size and it's a hardcover and it's. I don't know, it's just really cool. In fact, the covering front and back, it almost has like a bit of an embossment on it. It's kind of, I don't know, it's super cool. I really like it.
07:14
Also, the book, the entire story is, I'M going to say black and white, but they don't use black. It's more of a, like a dark sepia brown. So it's a brown and white. I don't know. Anyways, it still looks super awesome. And like I said, it's just a lot of fun. It's got a, you know, a little bit of a humor edge and everything to it, but it's still a solid zombie apocalypse story, so it's really cool. Definitely. Check it out. One of the other things that I discovered as I was, you know, getting ready to try and record this trade school is that apparently Netflix, like this story, was optioned to become a Netflix original series. And I've never seen it, but it definitely, they took liberties and changed a lot for the Netflix series. Whatever, that's fine.
08:23
I'm glad Brian got a good payday for that. I mean, he had to have gotten a good payday, so good for him for that. But if your experience, if you have any experience with Daybreak and it comes from that Netflix series, I feel confident in saying you have not experienced the story yet. And the story is fantastic. So check it out. Daybreak by Brian Ralph. It. I don't know. Oh, it was. I was gonna say image. It's not image. It was published by Drawn and Quarterly. Drawn and Quarterly originally published this when I got my copy. So that's it. Check it out. Daybreak again, my name is John Hook and I have a podcast of my own called Modern Mythos.
09:27
It is all about the Call of Cthulhu role playing game where I and my co host, Seth Skorkowsky, we talk about the Call of Cthulhu role playing game and other horror and Lovecraftian style investigative RPGs. And so we have a really good time with that. Until next time, thanks and happy reading.
09:51
The Legion of Superheroes is back. It's taken a while, but DC's oldest superteam is back.
09:56
Everything's different, but everything's the same. Does that make sense?
09:59
Kinda.
09:59
The Legion book is designed for new readers and I guarantee that when they see what Josh Williamson, Hayden Sherman and the crew have designed, they'll want to know more.
10:09
That's right. And if you want to know more about the Legion, its members, history and stories, the Long Live the Legion podcast is for you.
10:16
Every episode, we break down the characters, the stories, and the different versions of the team.
10:21
So whether this is your first time reading the Legion.
10:23
Or you've been reading them for a while,.
10:24
Check out the Long Live the Legion podcast. Wherever quality podcasts are served. Cpov certainpow.com.