Five friends decide to bury a time capsule; instead, they found a bunker from the future that warns them all that they are responsible for the end of the world as they know.

Sounds interesting? Yes, but the problem is that the artwork in this graphic novel is hideous. Seriously, this is probably something of the worst I've seen through the years.

And to make the matter worse, the font in the first issue is almost impossible to read. Very, very small cursive style. Not my favorite font to read when I read a graphic novel.





The story isn't that good either, mostly because they characters are swine that bicker and turn on each other once the truth is revealed. Sure, it's hard to accept that you are responsible for the world turning to s***. But here they are sitting on the knowledge about what will happen which means they can stop it. Instead, they argue and alienate each other. They are so unlikable that it was a struggle for me to finish reading. Btw it ends with a cliffhanger…meh!

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review! ( )

In The Bunker, five friends decide to bury a time capsule in the woods, only to find the titular bunker when they start digging. Once inside the bunker, they discover letters from their future selves, who somehow sent a bunker full of evidence back in time to warn their younger selves about the impending apocalypse they will have a part in causing. It turns out this innocuous-looking group of young people includes a future president, a soon-to-be brilliant scientist and several other eventual movers-and-shakers. Heavy stuff for a bunch of recent college grads, no?

When I started reading The Bunker, it occurred to me to wonder whether I’d ever read a graphic novel with art I hated despite enjoying the story. I’m honestly not sure I ever have. Probably the only situation where I continued enjoying a book in spite of the art is when the artist changed for an issue of a comic I was already invested in reading. In any case, I really did not like the art in The Bunker, and the story didn’t do anything to win me over.

My biggest problem with this book is a serious lack of characterization thanks to an indistinct art style and some fairly underdeveloped writing. The art is so stylized that it becomes very hard to tell the difference between the extremely generic characters. The main visual distinction is that some of the characters wear glasses and some don’t, and one guy is bigger than the others. We get a bit of back-story here and there, but the author spends the most time on one of the girls, who remembers being raped by her uncle when she was young – i.e. the most cliché, heavy-handed way to make a story about a woman feel Serious and Real.

As for the dialogue, it’s oftentimes the case that every other word the characters say is “fuck”, and everyone speaks with essentially the same voice. One character does make a few unfunny and off-color jokes in the first issue… but then things get all serious and he stops behaving that way. After the bunker and its predictions come into play, this turns into a fairly serious-minded tale of doom-and-gloom.

Ultimately, The Bunker just felt like a weird kind of wish-fulfillment. Instead of discovering a more personal and believable secret from their future selves, the characters find out that each of them is an incredibly important world-destroyer and of course that they were able to figure out how to send a huge bunker back in time. I think it’s possible to tell an interesting story about receiving notes from your future self, but this doesn’t feel like the way to do it, especially because the details strain credibility in so many ways.

The worst part? This first volume is almost all setup and very little plot. Not much of substance happens after the characters find the bunker – they freak out and fight with each other and then eventually get around to dealing with one of their predicted catastrophes. Definitely a disappointment.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley. ( )

My quest to find a new graphic novel series to love continues! This time I decided to give The Bunker: Volume 1 a shot at catching my interest. See, the premise is what struck me. 5 friends who find letters from their future selves in a mysterious bunker. Letters that promise them they can change the fate of the world. They'd chosen wrong the first time, and the entire population of Earth had suffered. I wondered, would they do the "right" thing? I love stories where there's a thin line between right and wrong. I was so hoping for one of those.

I almost gave this up after reading the first page, simply because the dialogue bubbles in the first issue are horribly rendered for digital reading. I genuinely hope they fix this if they're going to sell digital copies but, as I had an ARC, I soldiered on. What was laid out before me was a story that slowly pieced itself together. The story line is a little choppy, which I guess is to be expected if you're looking at a series of events from 5 different points of view. Still, it doesn't make for the easiest read in the world. I constantly had to reorient myself to understand whose head I was in.

Which brings me to another issue I had, and that was the illustrations. I didn't dislike them entirely, but I was overly impressed either. The characters are inked onto the page in a way that makes them look gritty and unfinished. Almost as if they are in constant fluctuation. If this was the effect the illustrator was going for, they succeeded. The problem is that it makes the characters rather hard to distinguish between. My saving grace was that one man and one woman have glasses, and one of the other male characters is on the larger side. Again, I had to stop and reorient myself to who I was following in the panels each time they swapped.

There are, of course, underlying stories to each of these characters. Since this volume only compiles the first 4 issues, the reader only skims the surface of a few of them. I think this was my favorite part of The Bunker: Volume 1. I enjoyed getting to know each of these characters on a more visceral level, and I have a definite feeling that their backgrounds are going to be very important in the issues to come. This story is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a science fiction romp. Thus I can admit, I'm still intrigued.

So I'll happily give three stars to this first volume, and promise to be back for more. I'm hoping all the problems are resolved in the volumes to come, and that I can add this series to my "must haves" list. ( )

This is an interesting read (premise, plot)... but it just felt a bit off for me in some parts. Plus (I don't know why) Grady just gives me the heebie jeebies. Probably would pick up subsequent issues just to see where the story goes (i.e. library? borrow from a friend?). But meh on purchasing. :/ ( )

The Bunker: Volume 1 by Joshua Hale Fialkov centers on a group of five friends who go to the forest to bury a time capsule. As they're digging around they stumble instead on a bunker and discover four letters addressed to four of them. (Interestingly, one guy doesn't get his own letter, a telling detail that will play itself out later in the arc of the story.) At first they think it's all an elaborate joke. They soon realize that it is all very real. The handwriting and the information mentioned in each letter remove all doubts. Tellingly, they don't share the letters with each other.

The messages in the letters are grim. In one form or another they learn that the world is going to end; an epidemic will eventually wipe out most of humanity. A few of them learn that they play a role in bringing about this disaster. The revelation disrupts the dynamics in the group and everyone starts to drift apart. The storytelling shifts at this stage, and we start to learn about each character individually.

Visually, The Bunker captures the tension between past, present, and future with panels that mix a heavy cocktail of pathos, regret, and unresolved personal sh*t that comes to the surface. This story is very character-driven and we're treated to backstories alongside both an increasingly anxious and paranoid present and flash forwards to a terrifying future. Good stuff. I thought the characters were very distinctly portrayed both through the dialogue, the letters, and the pacing of the panels.

A lot of people have expressed their distaste toward the artwork. Joe Infurnari's style here is abstract, blurry, as if we're looking at unfinished sketches, but I think this deliberate 'messiness' contributes nicely to the dark mood and evokes the shifting temporality inherent in the story. I think the criticism is unduly harsh. Illustrations don't have to be pretty.

The Bunker starts with a discovery and ends with a pretty big cliffhanger *SPOILER AHEAD as one of the future 'selves' returns to the present to confront (and manipulate?) the group*. As far as comics-style storytelling goes, this is compelling. I definitely want to read Volume 2. ( )