I hate sewers.

September 22, 2010 8:40 PM

The Sacrifice! Valve Software releases a 4-part comic that chronicles what happens to Francis, Louis, Zoey, and Bill at the end of the original Left 4 Dead.

As Francis quips, "Helicopter: Crashed. Plane: Crashed. Boat: Kicked us out and left us to die." For a free comic being released to promote some DLC, I was surprised by the excellent quality. Then again, it's Valve. Each installment is a hefty 40 pages of reading with some great artwork (one, two, three and four on the way).

posted by kbanas (15 comments total)

I was going to post this when it was complete, because it drives me nuts getting into a good story only to see a 'continued next week' page. It is surprisingly good, and I do really enjoy the chance to get some more exposition, and especially more background and characterization for the original survivors. For some reason, I never really liked the new group in L4D2 as much as I did the first.
posted by Hargrimm at 9:48 PM on September 22, 2010

This is great. I always wanted the cut-scenes fleshed out into a more cohesive story (I know they planned to, but decided against it because it would get too repetitive for online play.) Nice art, too.

Note for others: you can also download the PDFs on each comic's page.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:48 PM on September 22, 2010

Wow, those are really good. I think someone at Valve missed his or her calling.
posted by Malor at 9:53 PM on September 22, 2010

Valve Software releases a 4-part...

*GASP*

...comic...

Son of a...
posted by brundlefly at 10:46 PM on September 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Malor> Wow, those are really good. I think someone at Valve missed his or her calling.

The art is from a professional comic artist: Michael Avon Oeming.
posted by UrineSoakedRube at 11:41 PM on September 22, 2010

Enjoyed the first one, thanks for the reminder that the second was out. Really decent length for a free comic, too!
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:03 AM on September 23, 2010

It's good, sure, but it's no Doom comic.
posted by dudekiller at 3:37 AM on September 23, 2010

The first one strarts off a little creaky (re-enacting a videogame is a pretty terrible way to tell a story), but it gets really good.
posted by empath at 5:20 AM on September 23, 2010

I don't even play Left 4 Dead or particularly like the video-games, but that comic was well-written and dammit there's still a Part 3 and 4.
posted by kurosawa's pal at 7:23 AM on September 23, 2010

This still does not make up for the fact that none of this is Episode 3...
posted by BobbyDigital at 10:09 AM on September 23, 2010

This still does not make up for the fact that none of this is Episode 3...

Yeah! Someone tell Michael Avon Oeming to get back to work making Episode 3!
posted by straight at 11:16 AM on September 23, 2010

Am I the only one who hears all of Louis' lines in Twofer's voice?
posted by FatherDagon at 12:37 PM on September 23, 2010

This still does not make up for the fact that none of this is Episode 3...

According to Reddit, every time someone makes a fat joke about Gabe, Ep 3 gets pushed back another 6 months.
posted by empath at 1:07 PM on September 23, 2010

I just got around to finishing #2. Damn, now if there's ever a zombie apocalypse and a loved one gets bitten, I'm going to hesitate and doom myself. That twist was tough.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 1:16 PM on September 23, 2010

All four parts including the griping conclusion are now available here.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:47 PM on October 13, 2010