DARK ARK: THE COMPLETE ARC

by Cullen Bunn, Juan Doe, Jesús Hervás

The wickedness of mankind has moved the Creator to destroy the world by way of the flood. Noah has been tasked with building an ark to save his family and the animals of the world. But this is not Noah's story. For darker powers have commanded the sorcerer Shrae to build his own ark and save the unnatural creatures of the world―such as the vampires, the dragons, the naga, and the manticore. But what will happen on a vessel crawling with monsters, where insidious intrigue and horrific violence are the rule of law?

From writer Cullen Bunn (UNHOLY GRAIL, BROTHERS DRACUL, WITCH HAMMER, KNIGHTS TEMPORAL, X-Men Blue, Deadpool, Venom) and artist Juan Doe (AMERICAN MONSTER, WORLD READER) comes a sinister tale of biblical proportions.

This compendium includes the complete DARK ARK series (15 issues), plus the follow-up DARK ARK: AFTER THE FLOOD (5 issues) and the DARK ARK: INSTINCT Free Comic Book Day issue.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror

436 pages, Hardcover

Published June 21, 2022

About the author

Cullen grew up in rural North Carolina, but now lives in the St. Louis area with his wife Cindy and his son Jackson. His noir/horror comic (and first collaboration with Brian Hurtt), The Damned, was published in 2007 by Oni Press. The follow-up, The Damned: Prodigal Sons, was released in 2008. In addition to The Sixth Gun, his current projects include Crooked Hills, a middle reader horror prose series from Evileye Books; The Tooth, an original graphic novel from Oni Press; and various work for Marvel and DC. Somewhere along the way, Cullen founded Undaunted Press and edited the critically acclaimed small press horror magazine, Whispers from the Shattered Forum.

All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked various odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager, and Sasquatch Wrangler.

And, yes, he has fought for his life against mountain lions and he did perform on stage as the World's Youngest Hypnotist. Buy him a drink sometime, and he'll tell you all about it.

Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ended up being pretty cool. Noah of course has his ark but some evil powers needed all of the monsters and creatures to survive the flood also. That’s when Shrae, a sorcerer, was brought in by this evil power, not sure who he is supposed to be, the devil maybe? He orders him to build the dark ark if he and his family want to survive the flood. What could go wrong on an ark full of monsters right? Well, we of course have a mutiny and monsters growing restless due to hunger. Shrae manages to barely keep everything in check. Kruul, a manticore, was one of my favorite characters/monsters in this story. He was a nice addition and I liked every time he was on the page. Bunn does some cool things with the story when Noah’s ark gets into trouble. If Noah doesn’t make it, then the dark doesn’t make it either. That situation brought a since of urgency and I like what Bunn did with that. Things take a turn for the worse when the rain finally stops and they reach land. I really dug the secret backstory of Shrae’s daughter, Kahlee and the crazy move she pulled once they ran into a serious threat once the hit land. The end wasn’t good for any of the characters but I thought it was a good ending nonetheless. Although the art wasn’t anything to get excited about, the colors really did shine and helped the art out a lot. Pretty solid stuff.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story, about a parallel ark filled with monsters surviving the biblical flood, is original and well worth the telling, but the aaaaaaaarrrrtttt.........oh my God. A Horror comic needs appropriate art. This book looks like Dracula adapted by Charles Schulz. The characters all look alike, the monsters are completely uninspired, the colors are muted and lazy....I could complain all day. The faces are often, literally, two dot eyes, a semi-circle nose, and a round mouth. The art could not be working against the story more if they had tried. Great story, that went on far too long, but the art makes it hard to recommend.

[Jannik Fogt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jeg er virkelig glad for Cullen Bunns "Harrow County" og anbefaler den til alle. Den har helt eminent artwork og en gribende stemningsfuld fortælling med dybe karakterer som man holder af. Jeg er også ret begejstret for Bunns "The Sixth gun". Derfor var mine forventninger også høje, og måske for høje, til "Dark Ark". Jeg synes på ingen måde at denne tegneserie har det fortællermæssige overskud som Bunns værker ellers altid har. Jeg kunne ikke investere mig i karaktererne der virkede overfladiske og næsten generiske. Artworket virkede heller ikke for mig.

[Alex Sarll]

What if, as well as Noah's Ark, there was a second big boat in which the forces of darkness had directed their own representative to preserve the monsters the Flood was intended to drown? It's a brilliant pitch, but one I'm not sure the series lives up to. From the start, there are intriguing hints of a symbiosis between the two ships; after all, if the sorcerer Shrae doesn't ensure the survival of Noah's Ark, there'll be nothing for the vampires and nagas and bugbears to prey upon. But more than that, we get the angels confusing the two vessels, and while that might initially seem like their lofty inability to distinguish between the little people, once we catch sight of Noah, he does look an awful lot like Shrae. It all seems to be trailing a reveal that ultimately the two were taking their orders from the same source, that the Deluge was really a winnowing more than an attempt to purge the world of evil (because let's face it, even just within the Old Testament, it very obviously did a lousy job of that). But if so, that revelation ain't here, one of several things which makes me assume that the series was cut short. See also, the fact that the 15 issues of the original Dark Ark were already published in a bumper hardback, Arc One*, a couple of years ago. Which rather implies an accompanying Arc Two, but no, here we only get five issues of the sequel series After The Flood – previously published as a paperback Volume One – plus a Free Comic Book Day one-shot. It's hard not to assume there was meant to be at least one further volume of After The Flood; hard too not to assume that anyone who's a big enough fan of the series to have bought that previous hardback might be a bit peeved at being expected to fork out again for another volume in which they already have two-thirds of the material. Although if I'm honest I'm a bit puzzled at the thought processes of a hardcore Dark Ark fan anyway; it's certainly in the better half of Cullen Bunn's ceaseless flow of horror books, but I read through those first 15 issues in less than 24 hours, without even particularly trying and while other stuff was happening – which is on one level an endorsement, but speaks also to a certain insubstantiality.

How else does that flimsiness manifest? Let me count the ways. Most obviously, there's the reluctance to commit to the sinfulness or otherwise of antediluvian humanity, especially when compared to another current comic which affects to take Biblical accounts at face value, the gleefully ghoulish The Goddamned. The humans Shrae has taken on board as a larder for the monsters, for instance, spend several issues being innocent and scared...until it turns out in a flashback that aaaah, actually they were cannibals, and gits! Except the comic never quite works its head around that. It could have been a study, and not even that complicated a study, in how the same person can do monstrous things and yet still think themselves an innocent victim – gods know we see plenty of that in the world today. Or a story about how cannibalism isn't necessarily a thing only bad people do, even if it is one the heavenly authorities have deemed sinful. Or about the things good people do in extremis. But it never really feels like any of these so much as supporting characters being flipped back and forth according to the needs any given scene has for them. The hints of other factions in play beyond Heaven and Hell never really bear fruition, and at times become outright baffling: why would they both agree that Echidna, Mother of Monsters, should be gone from the world? And even if the motives are left oblique, why would they ever have thought that a flood was going to get rid of a sea monster? Hell, even Shrae, the supposed lead, can feel surprisingly insubstantial for all his bulk and supposed (though seldom seen) powers.

Mercifully, some of his charges take up the slack when it comes to character; the poor bloody unicorns make a good showing, but the undisputed star of the story is Kruul the manticore, almost invariably pissed off even while having a somewhat softer side than he wants to let on. Juan Doe's art gives him an imposing solidity to match his mood, and in general does a lot more work selling the monsters than the script tends to manage, whether that be the Nightmare Before Christmas angles of the vampires or Echidna herself, who still catches the attention despite sea monsters with lots of toothy tentacles being a pretty played-out image these days. And somewhere in there you can see there is more than just that elevator pitch – a very relevant story about the world that was and the world that waits, about how the world's predators had better make sure some of the prey survives the rising waters, if only for the most selfish of reasons. I'm just not sure how much of it has actually made it to the page.

*If nothing else, I appreciate the pun/jab at people who can't keep the homophones separate. See also the recent Tor article about the SF cannon – which really was about science fiction works that feature large, old-fashioned guns.

(Edelweiss ARC, which is why I'm only concerned about value for money at one remove rather than for myself)

[Kurt Lorenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

1-5, 40 Nights, ☆☆☆☆
6-10, Old Gods, ☆☆☆☆
11-15, The World That Waits, ☆☆☆☆
Dark Ark: Instinct, ☆☆☆
Dark Ark: After the Flood, ☆☆☆☆☆

[Brad Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the concept and the story, very creative.

[Danielle Boise · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating read about the dualing Arks. One fillled with God's creatures, the other filled with monsters and demons alike all trying to survive God's flooding of the earth for mankind's sin.