Mort by Travis Brown, Nate Walkington and Marina Leon

It’s late at night, a dame walks into the office. Jet black hair, a red dress that’s to die for and a set of pearly whites that really catch the eye – in fact they might be the last thing you see before you breathe your last breath. She is perilous, a real vamp, definitely not to be trifled with. But she needs help – of the dangerous kind….

This is not the office of a private eye, but rather a possibly even more hard boiled profession. A mortician. This is the world of Mort, a world filled with vampires, werewolves and zombies. Chandleresque smoke filled rooms, intrigue and death, so much death. You can practically hear the saxophones wailing in the background.

This is the first comic set in a funeral home that I have read since Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and in fact I think they might be the only ones currently in the graphic mortician space. Fair to say that is all those books have in common. The book has a cool concept and we begin to see an urban fantasy world that is as much political as it is supernatural. A fragile coalition of vampire clans is reminiscent of the gangster world of The Godfather or The Sopranos. Trouble is definitely coming. 

Writer Travis Brown leans into film noir genre settings but never to the point of cliche. The book is well paced and the supernatural world of Mort is unveiled naturally without overbearing exposition. Overall the narrative style has a subdued tone with some nice one liners that balances the uncanny and deadly world that our protagonist lives in.

The art in Mort is from illustrator Nate Walkington. Night time can be tricky to illustrate but maybe fittingly there is more focus on bodies than buildings in Mort. Backgrounds are plain, a use of negative space which feels sparse but does serve to emphasise the bodies in the room, living and undead. There are lots of dark alleys and slanting rain (I love a bit of comic book rain!) I found the artistic style similar to Steve Dillon, figurative work in particular reminds me of Dillon’s work in Preacher – a book that dealt with similar vampiric themes.

A word also for the lettering from Marina Leon, who recently won the 2025 Mad Cave Talent Search Competition in Lettering. Some nice work on the zombie ‘accents’ especially but never too much. The book also comes with two alternative covers by Henrique Kennedy.

If you like some genre mashing film noir urban fantasy in the vein of Blade, Preacher or Brubaker and Phillip’s Criminal then I’m sure you will dig Mort. You can find out more about the book and the forthcoming Kickstarter campaign at the Mort website.