I loved this graphic novel.

Original idea.

Fantastic Story telling and fabulous world building along with amazing illustrations and coloring all combine to create a graphic novel that readers will fall in love with.

Definitely deserving of 5 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fun read with what seems to be an interesting take on the end of the world. Narrative was a bit slow, I'd definitely need things to pick up a bit if I were to continue with the series.

A pretty good start to what looks to be a really interesting series developing. Looking forward to more.

I liked the book's plot and it was overall entertaining and enjoyable. I wasn't a huge fan of the art style as it was hard to make out the faces. I think the dialogue was mostly fine but a character cussed a couple times. The book wrapped up nicely with a plot twist and a satisfying ending.
Rating: 3 stars
FTC DISCLAIMER: I received this book in exchange for an honest review

I quite enjoyed this graphic novel, and felt that it had some good lessons for preteen children. A group of scouts go on a week-long survival trip, only to return home to find that their town has been overrun by zombies. They must band together, using courage, teamwork, trust and bravery to stay together and stay alive. I can see this being a great beginner story to introduce children to graphic novels.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I truly appreciate it!

The Junior Braves of Tribe 65 are off on a camping trip for spring break, after a week of roughing it and learning some survival skills from their leader. But, nothing could possibly prepare them for what they face upon their return to their hometown: everyone they love is gone, and instead, the streets are filled with mutant zombies. Now they must use the skills they have learnt to stay alive and figure out what happened to their families. Things quickly get scary when they are unlucky enough to get separated from their tribe leader. If the boys are ever going to figure out what happened to their town and their families, they’re going to have to stick together and use everything they know. The book even manages to sneak in some actual survival knowledge.

The plot itself is pretty solid and the characters are well developed. The group of boys consist of an extensive range of personalities that aren’t stereotypically boring as they have well written personalities and are physically recognizable from the start of the book.

The zombie apocalypse theme isn’t particularly new but watching these kids try to deal with the remainder of humanity is engaging. The artwork, with its gruesome depictions of the zombies and sparse colours, really helps to tell the story. Also, credit where its due it manages to steer clear of overt graphic violence and uses no profanity. And the story didn’t suffer one bit. They honestly wrote a tense, scary, exciting story without relying on shock gore or over the top language its honestly brilliant.

Book Review
Title: Junior Braves of the Apocalypse
Author: Greg Smith (Author), Michael Tanner (Author), Zach Lehner (Illustrator)
Genre: Graphic Novel
Rating: ***
Review: So, this graphic novel opens in Roseland, Washington where we meet Marvin, Lucas and their parents who all seem to be Lutherans which isn’t common in the place they are living at the moment, but he is still determined to go on the Junior Brave Camp out. We also meet a lot of other boys going on the camp out as they head out on their journey. However, they soon learn they aren’t going to the registered camp but to a wild reserve and while some of the boys are uncomfortable with this they soon settle into camp life when they see where they will be staying.
Things get a little strange when some heavy bomber planes fly over the camp site which is extremely unusual especially to the camp leader. However, this isn’t really gone into and the boys continue on with their trips and we learn that some of the boys come from some very difficult background and they incorporate a number of races, religions and social backgrounds. When they return at the end of the week everyone seems to have disappeared and been replaced with mutants or monsters, it isn’t clear but when one of the boys is snatched away the others move to the bell tower of the church for safety.
I really like how the graphic novel was broken up with informative sections on real life survival technique that are referred in the book itself. As the town seems to be unsafe the boys and the assistant leader find what supplies they can and look for somewhere safe, but they are missing two people, and another wandered off in the night and there is no telling whether they are still alive although I doubt it but it isn’t uncommon for characters in graphic novels like this to disappear and reappear later on.
The group are looking for a safe location and as the church is out and the homes are too crowded, the opt for the school only to find that the teacher have gone mental in the week they were away and that there may be a virus turning the townspeople into monsters and they now have to be c=wary of infection as well as find a safe place to hide from the monsters and as the method of infection isn’t clear it just adds to the atmosphere and suspense.
The group eventually ends up at the local supermarket, but it has been taken over by your stereotypical redneck gang and they find themselves thinking that they would have a better chance of survival on the outside but are threatens verbally and physically to stay on more than one occasion. Eventually they do get out and find a gas station to head west in the hopes of finding somewhere safe where they find Padre again who we haven’t seen since the beginning of the novel as I predicted earlier.
One nice thing about the novel that I really enjoyed was that all the boys have unique skills and flaws, that we get to see through the novel, not one of the characters development is sacrificed for the sake of another so we get to know the boy’s equally and how the events are truly affecting them.

This is a great story of friendship, perseverance, and, well, bravery. I think this would make a great addition to libraries looking for YA graphic novels outsthe superhero genre.

This is more of a 2.5 but I'm rounding it up to 3 stars because it's really not a bad book, it's more of a case of 'it's not you it's me'. I'm not the biggest fan of zombie stuff to start with so an author has to do something really out of the box with it to impress me and this story pretty much just fell into all the familiar 'horrible people you meet trying to survive the zombie apocalypse' tropes that we've seen a million times before [cannibals, trigger-happy rednecks, etc]. It was slightly interesting to see the story told from a younger point of view, but really the only kid I even liked was Johnny and overall it wasn't enough to make me want to continue with this series in the future. Also the entire book is in black and white which I really don't care for. It also makes it kind of hard for me personally to tell some characters apart since for me hair / clothing color is a large part of that. If you just REALLY love zombie stuff then you will probably like this, but I was just kind of meh over it.

'Junior Braves of the Apocalypse Vol. 1' by Greg Smith with illustrations by Zach Lehner is a book I've seen at comic conventions, and looked through, but never read.

A troop of Junior Braves from Tribe 65 go on a campout in the mountains. When they return home, their town has been destroyed and is overrun by mutants. They do their best to get away, and with the help of some grownups are safe for a while, but even these adults seem to have something wrong with them. Can the boys find safety?

My first problem was the art. It's a bit vague in places and I was mixing some of the characters up. They just weren't distinct enough. My other problem was that even though most of the town has turned to mutants, there are only crazy adults left. There are no other kids or adults that can be trusted. Maybe this will change in future volumes.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Oni Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Firstly, thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.
At a very basic level, this is a graphic novel about boy scouts defeating zombies. Drawing on their scout survival skills they engage in a series of battles with the undead in a camping trip that turned out to be much more than they had expected.
Put aside the obvious premise for a second and look more closely at the sub-text and it feels like there is some important social commentary in this story. The multi-cultural group of young, coming of age boys that are thrown together on a journey to become young men, find they have to grow up much faster than they would like. As they fight for survival it feels like there is a key message here; the only cultural divide is between the humanity and the undead.
This is a good read, not mind-blowing, but good. The black and white illustrations are pretty cool and the overall story is interesting even if not very original.

Basically, zombies and boy scouts. As one other reviewer said, Lumberjanes for Boys, with zombies thrown in.

If you like zombies, you'll like this. If you are like me, and just want them to end, the zombies, I mean, then you will be looking for something, anything to follow in the story.

What I did like about it, was how the boy who was Native American was just disgusted with the "Junior Braves" atmosphere of the whole thing.

And it was sort of cute how they used their boy scout like training to get through the hazards that came up with the zombies.

But, that is it. Zombies and more zombies.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.