If You Find This, I'm Already Dead

by Matt Kindt, Dan McDaid (illustrator), Bill Crabtree (Color Artist )

From the New York Times bestselling creator of Mind MGMT and co-writer of BRZRKR with Keanu Reeves comes a multi-dimensional cosmic odyssey presented in a pulp magazine-sized format!

Robin is a big city reporter, embedded with US Marines heading to the hostile pocket universe called Terminus. Ten minutes in, the entire marine squad is wiped out and she has to survive (and report) on her own. Terminus is full of cosmic wonders–and sci-fi “gods” that are in the middle of a political power struggle. The language is alien, and the politics are deadly. Can she survive long enough to figure out what’s going on and get home to tell the story?


If You Find This, I'm Already Dead is the latest release from Flux House Books, a new boutique imprint that will feature the writing (and sometimes) art of acclaimed comics creator Matt Kindt, with crime, science fiction, horror, and humor stories, all told and presented in startling and untraditional ways.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fiction, War, Horror, Comic Book

120 pages, Hardcover

Published September 24, 2024

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

More interdimensional storytelling by Kindt, and much like Cosmic Detective with Jeff Lemire, this is so mid it brings tears to my eyes. Why even set your story in a different dimension if it looks like any Star Wars-esque sci-fi? You'd expect something eyepopping from another dimension, and Kindt doesn't seem to have it in him.

The story is okay, but feels rushed, it's too big for four issues.

(Thanks to Dark Horse Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)

[Valéria. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not Matt Kindt's usual genre, but definitely should be. As amazing as his spy stuff, he will take you to see a weird world and make you enjoy it. Dan McDaid's creatures are very ugly, yet beautiful.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most messed up Stargate mission, that's done gone wrong!

Highly recommend it. Dan McDaid draws some interesting interdimensional creatures, and Bill Crabtree colors the hell out of em.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A love letter to pulp comics as a whole. The start feels like those old war comics, until it morphs into a John Carter-esque scifi adventure with Lovecraftian undertones, only to end in a cosmic fight of Kirbian proportions. All of this framed through the eye of a reporter tagging along on a military mission. The writing and art are both pretty on point. McDaid's art has kind of an old-school feel that's just perfect for this. He goes from drawing the insides of a helicopter to the insides of a fallen alien god and somehow makes it feel cohesive.

All of that being said, it feels pretty forgettable overall..

[Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed issues 1 and 2, taking a tour of this Kirby-esque planet. Funny seeing Civil War and reading this not long after.
Art and colours were good.

Issue 3 was a let down, I'd stick to a digital read.

[Jeremy Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classy. Beautiful. Clear. Short. Powerful. Book clubs should read this and discuss it.

[Francisco del Amo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pfffff 👎🏽

[Artur Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt Kindt faz aqui um belíssimo pastiche de literatura, ficção científica e banda desenhada. A história parece decalcada de outras obras (e é-o) - uma jornalista é enviada como membro de uma missão militar a um planeta violento, numa realidade paralela. Tudo corre mal, a periclitante base terrestre foi ocupada pelos alienígenas, e a jornalista é a única sobrevivente. Insere-se na cultura nativa, e revela a sua real missão - localizar o responsável pela violência e carnificina, que se revelerá ser um dos elementos da primeira missão terrestre ao planeta. Se estão a ver aqui laivos de Heart of Darkness (ou Apocalipse Now), bem, se lerem percebem que é quase decalcado. Mas Kindt também vai buscar inspiração à Sci-Fi pop militarista, e até faz vénias aos filmes japoneses onde Kaijus se defrontam. O estilo gráfico de McDaid segue esta linha, e vai beber diretamente ao psicadelismo da BD francesa de ficção científica dos anos 70, há no livro claras inspirações em Mézières ou Druillet.

[Peter Derk · Rating 2 out of 5]

My prediction on this book is that it will be beloved by those who don't read a lot of comics, and for those of us who have poisoned our brains with a constant stream of funnybooks, it's kinda forgettable.

It has a bit of what I call the Wonder Woman Problem, which is where a person who is anti-violence comes into a violent situation and ends up solving her problems with extreme violence, which sort of kills the point.

Can we talk briefly about the No Man's Land scene from that movie?

I get it, big triumphant moment of crossing the NML, but...it's kind of a different thing when you have diamond-hard skin, no? Like, it's not really about being brave enough or whatever, it's about the act having no real consequences when you're Wonder Woman? It's not like nobody had the idea of just going across it before, you didn't cross it because you'd be killed instantly and do nothing. But if you're a superhero, no problem.

On one hand, it's a good superhero moment because, well, that's sometimes the point: Superheroes doing things regular people can't.

On the other, though, I always thought it was a little, I don't know, patronizing. Because it's kind of posed as a situation where Wonder Woman is inspiring people to be their best, but they could not have crossed it at all without her being there. It's not about them being their best, it's about her being there and possessing special abilities that make it possible to cross.

To put this another way, I think the Raimi Spider-Man movies do a really good job with a somewhat cheesy thing, where NY residents help Spidey out here and there. I think Spider-Man, in those movies, inspires people to be a little braver or better than they might normally be. I think they see he's really trying and up against some impossible odds, and he goes for it anyway, and I think that's, for me, the more effective superhero story than the ones where the hero swoops in and does stuff with their powers and kind of solves World War I or whatever.

I'm being hard on the movie, a little unfair, I just felt like that was kind of a good scene that doesn't really work the more I think about it.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title makes it clear that this is one of Kindt's tributes to pulpy fifties comics, and with the help of illustrator Dan McDaid's over-the-top work, we begin with Sgt. Rock-style war comics, move to science fiction to horror and back again. There's a tribute to grand European adventure comics here, for sure. And not much of a story, really, when it comes down to it. But it does have that catchy title!

Robin is for some reason assigned by Kindt with the role of journalist for the Planet Earth on a mission with the US Marines to a universe we want to colonize, Terminus (oh, she's a journalist cuz somebody needs to tell the history of this mission!). All but one of the tough well-prepared Marines gets killed right away, and she---the only woman--joins with the only real sensitive guy to find out how to survive and connect with all the "aliens" there. Some point is made about how the striving for power seems to be at the root of being human or being Terminusian. Then war erupts and spolier alert she lives to tell the tale.

Kindt help set up McDaid to invent fantastic worlds and monsters when he has Robin get speechless about the buildings and statues and landscapes she finds incredible, beyond words, and so on, and the art has does have this "fantastic" quality to it, (as in consistent with any fantasy world), but it's a big ask of the artist, it's just ok for art and story. It'a maybe 2.5, overall.

[H. Givens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think the cover choice adequately conveys the genre(s) of the book -- I had assumed it was more of an Earth-based military type story, maybe with some horror elements because of the author. It's more sci-fi with some eldritch horror elements. However, that's my only quibble, this is one of my new favorite Matt Kindt books. (The others are 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man and the Dept.H series, if anyone's interested.) I loved the art and the worldbuilding (the sort of Celestial-like gods especially) and the way it builds characters with just a few details. It really works for the length of book that we have, because it can gesture to a lot of previous discourse about gods and human nature while telling a fairly simple story with few characters. I'm sure others will just feel like that makes it derivative -- which is fine, not everything speaks to everybody -- but I loved it.

[Ricardo Nuno Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title and the first few pages quickly caught my attention.
The plot starts in "mysterious mode", and then grows into a riveting sequence of twists and surprises that will keep you interested right until the very last page (and I mean, yes, the epilogue).

I'm a Matt Kindt fan (no surprise there, since the "BRZRKR" saga) and Dan McDaid's art is stunning, right on the money! Effective, emotional and detailed.
The plot melts your brain around page 15 and then you just can't stop reading.
Being this a graphic novel involving alien species, it's really worth mentioning the clever trick used to allow the reader to somehow "understand" many of the critical inter-species dialogues.

All in all, this graphic novel is great fun to read, about an unlikely hero trying to survive and restore some balance in a forsaken faraway planet.

[Scotoma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Embedded reporter in a military unit going on a routine mission to a pocket dimension where there’s a human outpost. When they arrive everyone is dead though and soon so is her entire team and she has to survive while also finding out what’s going on. Has some nice, Kirby-esque art but the entire story is more told than shown and falls entirely flat. Part of it is that the alien dimension feels rather generic.

Another reason is that the viewpoint protagonist is rather boring and/or how she tells the story is. It's really up to the writing to make readers care or find characters compelling to follow and that isn’t happening here at all. Even the solid visuals can’t stop this from becoming a complete slog despite its short length. Rather forgettable overall.

[Will Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

*If You Find This, I’m Already Dead* by Matt Kindt is a wild sci-fi trip that throws the protagonist Robin an alien hellscape (in another realm) a full of strange politics and even stranger inhabitants. Robin is barely hanging on after her entire military squad gets wiped out, leaving her to fend for herself. Matt Kindt combines his usual surreal storytelling with Dan McDaid’s gritty, atmospheric art to create a landscape that feels alien and dangerous at every turn. I did feel the world could be fleshed out a little more but overall was a gripping read.

[Mee Too · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a colorful rant about the evils of mankind wrapped around a sci-fi-ish story.

I remember the first time I understood human nature too buddy, it’s like it was yesterday….I was turning 9 I think 🤔

How many times did he say, “ what happened next, can’t be described in words…” then wandered off on some more ranting or a childhood story 😂

What drugs where you on when you wrote this? Solid C-

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Aliens are bad to each other just like people on EARTH" is a theme that is literally spelled out for you multiple times. Meanwhile, the protagonist gets an infodump monologue at the end of the first issue and Kindt decides that's basically it for character development. Then it just becomes a sci-fi travelogue with captions through a generic Star Wars world until giant things fight or something, I don't know, my eyes were glazing over at that point.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

A generic story about a war journalist who travels to another dimension with a small team of soldiers. There she winds up on her own and just kind of bores me out of my mind while travelling this bleak world. Sometimes if you don't have anything new to say, maybe you just shouldn't even do it. At three issues, there's not much content here either. But what there is, is a whole lot of filler to double the page count.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Matt Kindt tells a good scifi story here about invasion, assimilation, and power. The book is about an embedded reporter and her trip to an alien dimension that America/Earth is trying to colonize. Things get out of hand real quick. The book is solid but the story is much too fast and could have been paced better, maybe twice the size. Also, not every story needs Kaiju sized mechs. The art was also solid especially the alien landscapes. Overall, a pretty good read but lightning fast.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool sci fi graphic novel. It's a short, simple story, but the art and designs are awesome. Overall, the moral resonated about plundering resources that aren't ours, and I was rooting for the protagonist to discover who was sabotaging their mission to the newly discovered planet. Note: characters were a bit one note. CW: contains gore, language.

[Alberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Javier Campos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bah muchos tropos de ciencia ficción

[Dbgirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning was promising and it kept its promise for a long time, until the end was a big disappointment. The art was amazing all the way through.

[Ricardo Farias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante idea sobre la maldad y el poder y cómo ambas no reconocen fronteras.

[Niche · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I'd pitch this as Heart of Darkness but the protagonist is a war reporter on an alien planet.