THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! Samanta de la Rosa Batllori is a freelance comic artist from Mexico City, Mexico, who is probably best known in the UK for illustrating H.L. Roberts’ Infection and Bloodyween series (and has a beautifully illustrated backup story in Roberts’ new comic for TB25, Tournament Tour Fighter).
Dead on Arrival seems like a more personal project for Batllori as she does everything herself from writing to self-publishing. The premise is a simple one: Lyssa Cruz, a young woman in 1968 Mexico, dies in a fire before circumstances bring her back to “life”. A complex and very disturbing tale is spun out of that idea. Lyssa meets a demonic after-life mentor who escorts her back to her hometown, with a set of rules she must follow when interacting with the living. Unfortunately, when he says Rule #3, “No possessing bodies, neither dead nor alive,“ Lyssa’s mind is set on a course of action. She immediately goes to her funeral and reanimates her corpse! (At this point put your seatbelt on, because it’s a wild ride) Apparently risen miraculously from the dead, Lyssa nonetheless resumes her old life.
However, a rotting corpse reanimated by a spirit is still a rotting corpse, and not exactly suitable for office work. Things go downhill from there as Lyssa keeps decomposing as she struggles to maintain her old life. Events take a horrific turn as she discovers eating meat reverses the decomposition of her body. Running out of meat at her hometown butcher leads her to the desperate move of killing farm animals to provide more. The amazing thing about Batllori is how she keeps Lyssa sympathetic in her spiritual anguish at what she’s driven herself to through her selfish actions.
The art by Batllori throughout Dead on Arrival matches the brutality of the story, with frenetic swirls of thick black lines and thin brush strokes building an ugly world that is quietly relentless. The farther we get into the story the more abstract the action gets, the deeper the shadows masking the horrific acts Lyssa commits, and the more startling a splash of blood here and there. Batllori uses colour to great effect in conjunction with the line art; the sepia tones give her much opportunity to enforce the terrible events that Lyssa endures without overwhelming the reader with visceral imagery. It’s a delicate balancing act that allows the tiny bit of sympathy for Lyssa to shine through, which makes all the difference in this type of story.
An original take on a zombie story is a rare sight. Congratulations to Batllori for managing to disgust and delight us equally with Dead on Arrival.
Samanta Batllori (W/A/E, English-language T), Andy Aksu (English-language edition CA) • Self-published, £12.00
Physical English-language edition available at Thought Bubble, digital edition available here
Review by Gary Usher
Available from H.L. Roberts who will be at Table C40 in the 2000 AD Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2025 runs from November 1oth-16th with the convention weekend taking place on the 15th-16th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2025 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster by Ng Yin Shian
