Run Wild Review

A doe, a deer. A female deer!

Written by: K.I. Zachopoulos
Art by: Vincenzo Balzano
Published by: BOOM-Archaia
Cover Price: $24.99
Release Date: July 11, 2018
Review by: Pauly P


Ava and Flynn have a rough time lately. Their mother left them alone in a wasteland with no food scared and nowhere to go and surrounded by monsters. She said she would change the world! Did she? Or did she just head out for a pack of cigarettes and just not come back? Let’s have a look and see what’s going on. 



Ava and Flynn are scared, cold, alone and have nowhere to go. Mum disappeared and told them to avoid everyone. As they begin to wander in the deserted wasteland, a giant fox takes them under her protection and tells them she will keep them safe until they can find “Papa” who can fix it all and Ava and Flynn are the keys to it all! They are the last pure humans left. She protects them from a giant wolf, and we cut to a scene of a buck who narrates for us that his pack can’t allow the fox to take children to papa. Ava, Flynn, and Bea the fox begin their trek across the land to find Papa. 

After a confrontation in the last populated (by animals) city, we learn the buck isn’t who we thought he was, Bea isn’t who we thought she was, and papa definitely isn’t who we thought he was. Papa needs the last humans to bring about the second apocalypse, and only Bea knows his whereabouts. Bea has been misled by papa and the Nameless buck is after the party to keep Papa from getting his hands on them. 

After freeing a giant doe and riding across the ocean in a whale, Ava notices she is starting to turn into a deer herself. A firefly then lets us know about what happened- papa has built a machine that can separate souls! Only it doesn’t work as good as it sounds. Ava and Flynn’s mother was part of papa’s crew and stole the spark the powered the machine and ran off. 

Papa used his machine anyway, and what was supposed to be a glorious union of human an animal souls went wrong. Humans gradually lost their souls and became pure animals. If papa gets his hands on the kids, he can banish all animal souls forever! Flynn is the spark, but as it turns out Ava has just enough spark in her to destroy paps machine and sacrifices herself and her soul to save Flynn and keep the second apocalypse from happening. Flynn is the last human on earth, but at least he has a doe to keep him company!

This is the very definition of a “Graphic Novel”. 

Bits and pieces:

I flipped through this book to just see what it was about and got hooked. The art is incredible- watercolor-esque and just a bit spooky at times mixed with glowy pastels. The story has just enough twists to keep you hooked and off balance until the end. It’s a tricky story to sum up in a short review, but check it out if you can. It’s a fun story about family, animals and some clever social commentary about losing touch with nature. It’s 148 pages, but most pages have big panels or full-page spreads so it’s a quicker read than you might think. Highly recommended!

8.5/10