I have liked a lot of what I've read from NBM. But this one confounds me.

The final volume of Zombillenium arrived unsolicited and unheralded in my mail the other day. It's a slim, hardback graphic novel, translated from French, containing the last two chapters of an ongoing series by Arthur de Pins. Unfortunately, I knew nothing of the series prior to its arrival, and the book does little to catch new readers up to speed.

So, there's an amusement park in northern France run by demons and vampires and the like, and apparently on Black Friday they are permitted to kill a bunch of patrons. I'm not sure why. There's a woman a few decades back who sold her soul for "musical genius," only to get knocked up by a demon. Her daughter Gretchen grows up to be a witch. And when demon daddy comes to claim the girl, some 20 years later, to work at his new theme park, mom poisons him (temporarily) with holy water in his tea to give Gretchen time to run, for which mom is dragged to Hell. Then Gretchen takes the job anyway.

In the first chapter, it's Black Friday, when the monsters that inhabit/work at the theme park are allowed to kill the visitors. So Gretchen goes on a rescue mission. Consequently, there's a lot of fighting, but it's never all that clear what the stakes are. There's a big climactic duel. There's a mine-car ride to Hell. There are ghosts and animated skeletons. But, so far as I can tell, there's no character arc or development going on here, no real plot, just a mishmash of incoherent fight scenes. The second chapter is about a big battle royale between witches, with Gretchen a last-minute surprise entry, and if she wins a bunch of monsters get their freedom from Hell or something.

I looked up some reviews of earlier books in the series, and folks seem to like them. Honestly, I can't imagine why. I must be missing something. But I doubt I'll figure it out, since nothing about this book inspired me to want to read the earlier volumes in the series.

If you enjoy this series, please drop me a line and explain why.