David Lapham is the Eisner-winning writer of Stray Bullets, but that wasn’t a book that I fell 
madly in love with. I enjoyed it, and I can see why so many people are nuts about it, but I actually fell for Lapham based on a much later work: His DeadpoolMAX series. It’s one of the best superhero satires I’ve ever been blessed to read. After reading that, I went back to dig up copies of Stray Bullets and some other work he did. One of the items I found was Crossed: Family Values, the sequel to Garth Ennis’ extremely graphic gross-out take on the “zombie” theme. (It’s not zombies, it’s a madness virus—kind of like 28 Days Later, but the tale reads like many zombie stories.) Crossed: FV was like Ennis’ most disgusting work times ten. It was brutally violent, full of rape and incest and all forms of sick baby violence you would ever want.
I kinda liked it.
But now, I found out he’s writing the adaptation of The Strain, a Dark Horse adaptation of novels by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro about vampires. And the art is by Mike Huddleston, who has completely blown my mind with his work on the criminally underread Butcher Baker The Righteous Maker series. So I’m recommending, sight unseen, that you all go check out The Strain. Lapham is one of those talents who, when he’s good, he’s great—but his work isn’t for everyone. Avoid him unless you’ve got a tough mind and a willingness to be exposed to some pretty out-there, gruesome stuff.
Suggested works:
- Stray Bullets. His seminal, highly influential indie book.
- Daredevil vs. Punisher. A surprisingly good, if unsurprising, six-issue mini, on which he also served as artist.
- Crossed: Family Values. But not if you have a weak stomach or are easily offended. Hell, even if you’re hard to offend you’ll probably be turned off by this one.
- DeadpoolMAX.
