Ortha an Tuama

De Bheoibh nó De Mhairbh is the first graphic novel from the French trilogy Outre Tombe written by Jean and Simon Léturgie and illustrated by Richard Di Martino. Seaghan Mac an tSionnaigh has translated it to Irish, published by Dalen Éireann.

It centres on a group of teenagers who are attending a birthday party when the story takes a turn for the worse that will remind readers of the film Shaun of the Dead. It is Lís’ twentieth birthday and she is celebrating with a house party. When her friend Neidí isn’t feeling great, their friend Pól makes him a lethal cocktail mixing all the old alcohol in the house. However, it’s not only Neidí who drinks the cocktail, but Lís’ father, who is a new widower following the recent death of Lís’ mother, takes a gulp of the toxic tonic. Things go from bad to worse when Neidí gets sick and vomits the contents of the cocktail into the local graveyard where it soaks into the ground to the corpses buried there.

The story moves at a rapid pace with events getting crazier and stranger by the minute: Lís’ crazy scientist father resurrecting her mother and presenting her to the party attendees, Sheriff Mac Tíre calling to the house on the search for a serial killer on the loose, Lís’ mother turning into a zombie trying to kill whoever she sees…

Lís and her friends make their way down to the graveyard to see if her mother really is resurrected from the dead, but they are taken by surprise by the newly awakened zombies who start to follow them home. When they return to Lís’ house things become even more frantic and chaotic as the zombies try to get in, intent on killing the teenagers. Will the group of friends manage to deter them? They are on their own as the police are distracted with the search for the serial killer.

Seaghan Mac an tSionnaigh has managed to keep the frantic pace and movement of this story in his arrangement of this graphic novel. Not only do the conversations read naturally, but there is great liveliness in the exclamations throughout. There are also nods to Irishness as well such as the reference to the cocktail of drinks as ‘Poitín Jim Phait Willy’.

This crazy, fast-paced story will appeal to anyone who enjoyed the likes of Shaun of the Dead, Scary Movie or stories with zombies and devilment.