Resistance is a graphic novel written by Val McDermid and illustrated by Kathryn Briggs. The story was originally a radio broadcast on BBC4 in 2017 and is about the dangers of the overuse of antibiotics, and industrialized farming. It begins at a music festival in Scotland. The main protagonist is reporter Zoe Beck who is covering the festival. Several festival participants become extremely ill after eating at a food truck owned by Zoe's friends. Fortunately, everyone recovers and things go back to normal...for a short while.

Then, after a week or so, people begin feeling ill again and purple blotches break out on their skin. Doctors are baffled by the disease especially when antibiotics seem to have no effect on it. Then a popular performer at the festival dies and now Zoe's friends become the targets of hate when their food truck is shut down. Zoe is determined to protect her friends' reputations while following the biggest story of her career. She investigates his suppliers to discover the original source of the disease. But even as she investigates the plague spreads, seemingly unstoppable, killing millions as it gallops across the world. Scientists work frantically to find a cure but, slowly, one by one, their communications go dark.

This is a well-written story by McDermid, made all the more terrifying by the very real and horrifying possibilities the overuse of antibiotics may lead to. It is perfectly complemented by the artwork, sharp and occasionally chaotic as the disease spreads. There are some, no doubt, that may find this novel insensitive given that we are in the midst of a very real and deadly pandemic but, if we learn anything right now, it should be the danger of diseases caused by human action whether overuse of antibiotics or loss of habitats bringing us closer to animals who may carry diseases we have no immunity to as well as our refusal to take the threat seriously enough to prepare for it.

I can't say I found the novel enjoyable given the subject and the times but it is well-written, well-illustrated and compelling. I recommend it highly to anyone wanting to understand better the world and the possibilities if we won't reevaluate what we are willing to accept both for ourselves and the only planet we have in the name of profits and expediency.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

I was so intrigued by this one as this author is super popular with the bookstore that I work at and thought this would be really interesting to read. The plot was interesting and very relevant but the art for me honestly fell short and I found myself confused because there were so many characters.

It's not a story, it's a warning...

Part cautionary tale, Part end of the world.

Definitely Covid inspired

However, what we have here is a worst case scenario, against a disease that's not slightly lethal but utterly lethal, with a transmission vector that isn't entirely clear (Although if you're a Vegan, you'll probably do much better than the Omnivores), and a lethality rate as close to 100% as you could get it. Everything that Covid is in certain places, and with that comes the sure and certain knowledge that while science has done wonders for Covid, there may come a time when the preventative measures will be all that can save us, as there will be no way for a cure to be developed.

If I'm honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this book, well told, the research is clear and correct, the dangers that are noted in the book are all true and without concerted effort, this could well be the way the world ends., but we're still in a dark place from Covid and while some part of me understands that the best time to put out cautionary tales is when we're still suffering the effects of what happened the last time no one listened to the scientists, the part of me that lost his Dad less than half a year ago perhaps wasn't ready for it.

The artwork is curious, often following non standard layout patterns, the clock page is a particular example of this, where to read the words in order, you had to go right, then down, then left, then up, which was a really imaginative thing to experiment with, but had me reading it wrong a few times before I got the notion. There was also a lot of text, which isn't a terminal problem when you love to read (and I do), but could put off those who are looking for a graphic novel to tell more with the artwork. There are some wonderful set pieces, but they're few and far between.

Overall, I think this is a superb warning, and a good book, I'm not sure I could read it twice, and that's probably the highest praise for something that looks to be a warning.

A story a little too close to current reality for me to enjoy it. Brigg's drawings that are perfect for the plot.

Una storia un po' troppo simile alla realtá attuale perché io me la possa godere. Lo stile della Brigg è perfetto per la trama.

I received a complimentary digitar advance Review copy from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

The Short Version: A chilling look at how unprepared we are for future global pandemics that hits close to home given the recent pandemic.

The Long Version: This graphic novel was obviously inspired by our recent struggles with the COVID 19 pandemic and does an excellent job of shining a light on how as humans we tend to be reactive instead of proactive. The narrative is highly believable and creates a lot of tension as you imagine just how easily we could slip into the reality in this novel.

Although the novel is well plotted and well written, it struggles under its own weight at times. The novel is trying to educate us to scare us into taking action now, and in the process it gets very heavy with dialogue and info dumping which kind of pulled me out of the world of the narrative at times.

The artwork is solid, and the proof I reviewed isn’t a final version, so I’m not sure if it’s going to be in black and white in its final version, but if it is, the artwork will suffer because the black and white gets cloudy here and there. Adding color would really increase the impact.

The layout is clunky at times. Occasionally the flow of dialogue is counterintuitive and confusing to read. Also, a lot of the pages have backgrounds (all very intentional as they relate to what’s going on and evoke things like the times of the bubonic plague, the craze of media, etc...) and these backgrounds clash with the action in the foreground. If the art gets colorized but the backgrounds stay black and white, I think the overall product would be better.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5. It was incredibly informative and well thought out but the educational aspect of the novel clashes with the narrative aspect and pulls away at some of the enjoyability. Even so it’s something everyone should read

Component Ratings
Concept/Idea: 4.5 out of 5
Art: 3.5 out of 5
Dialogue: 2.5 out of 5
Layout: 2 out of 5
Characters: 4 out of 5
Character Development: 4.5 out of 5
Plot: 3.5 out of 5
Ending: 4 out of 5

Unfortunately the visual aspect of this book was not appealing to me at all. Normally I like graphite drawings, but these looked really messy. Sometimes images were put on top of other images. While that was kind of a cool effect, it made the book very hard to read. At times I had trouble telling the difference between characters because they looked very similar. I also wasn’t a fan of the lettering choices.

If there was ever a story that read as if stripped from today's news, this is it. First it was a novel reprinted in graphic novel format. For me this brought the story of a Pandemic and how it forces people to look past their own needs and stations to fight survival, regardless of the personal cost. I know this was written before covid-19, which makes me think Val McDermid may be psychic. The illustrations by Katheryin Briggs is amazing. I'd love to see more novels brought to life in this format.
Thanks to Netgalley and Atlantic Monthly Press for giving me this free in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This book is something new and different for one of my favorite authors. She has broken barriers before, as for instance, with her Lindsay Gordon mysteries which may have been the first to have a lesbian sleuth. Many love her Tony HIll and Carol Jordan mysteries, while I am a huge fan of the Karen Pirie novels and stand alones including A Place of Execution and The Vanishing Point. Now, Ms. McDermid is publishing her first graphic novel.

The story is about a reporter and her friends (and their food truck) who go to a music festival (kind of like Glastonbury). But, something goes horribly wrong, as many people become ill and others try to figure out how this has happened and what it means. To me, the subtext is definitely Covid.

I really wanted to like this darkly illustrated story, but I did not find that it sufficiently drew me in. That said, maybe it was just me, as Val McDermid is an extraordinary writer.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

I was trying to read this graphic novel bit by bit but I just couldn’t understand wtf was going on. There were too many characters and always set at different places that I just couldn’t grasp what’s happening....

Big thanks to NetGalley though for giving me this book though!

Resistance is a well-composed visual story, an example of what the graphic novel can be and do, and a fascinating narrative, all bound up in a multimodal text. Highly recommended as an assemblage and pictorial/textual vision.

I did not finish this book because I did not like the artwork at all and did not want to continue looking at it. I will avoid putting up a review on other sites as I did not want to finish.

The "Queen of Crime" tries her hand with her graphic novel titled 'Resistance' and creates an fantastic atmosphere with a pandemic affecting lakhs of people who have gathered for the open-air music festival. The story is sharp and fast and the dark illustrations by Kathryn Briggs added value to the story.
This book coupled with the current pandemic creating havoc across the globe is a sure winner and Val McDermid has proved once again that her stories are among the best with the best finishes to the stories.

I'd definitely recommend this book to all Val McDermid fans and to others who have not yet had a taste of her strong writing skills.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In 2017, there was a radio drama developed through the Experimental Stories scheme, a collaboration between BBC Radio 4 and Welcome Trust, charity focused on health research in UK. The story was penned by unmatchable Val McDermid and superbly voiced by an amazing cast and it was a chilling take on pandemic outbreak. This comic is adaptation of that drama.
The story is focusing on Zoe Beck, an investigative journalist who is covering a solstice music festival in Northumberland. With more than 100.000 attendees, the festival becomes the ground zero of so-called SIPS, bacterial disease originated from meat that came from pigs held in unsanitary conditions. The name "Resistance", as much as we want to attach some hopeful meaning to, actually refers to AMR (Antimicrobial Resistance), the genuine concern that bacteria in an effort to survive keeps mutating and thus, renders ineffective all antibiotics and medicine available. It becomes resistant.
Despite having a main character, the story is multi-layered and offer a glimpse of global problem, though not to a degree some other stories that go with multiple individual accounts (World War Z) do. Zoe carries the story because she was present at the festival where it all started, her job is to follow the news and discover what's behind it, but she also has a personal stake to come to the bottom of it. We touch upon sluggish government response, pharma response and difficulties scientist have to deal with in order to do their job and help humans. The plot keep escalating to hellish future finishing on a rather desperate and chilling note.
Val McDermid's storytelling is sharp and to the point. Known as a Scottish queen of crime, Val McDermid hold a special place in my heart, since I'm pretty sure her A Place of Execution was the one to convert me to a mystery genre and she is yet to stir me wrong with her New Blood feature. Simply said, I'm a a fan.
The art is perfectly serviceable for the story, featuring a very diverse set of characters. I was not familiar with the work of Kathryn Briggs, but I checked her portfolio. She describes herself as a "maker of artsy comics" and that artsy part is very evident in several layout pages, perhaps more noticeable in a beautiful panel near the end where you can draw a parallel to her Tarot work.
If I have to take anything from it is that at certain parts, art did seem lazy. The story looses a bit of sharpness and "landing a point with a very little" somewhere around the middle and I wouldn't be as bothered if it wasn't so effortlessly doing it up to that point. As the result, some of the scenes that were suppose to be the most emotional ones, didn't reflect that sentiment. The ending, as abrupt as it was, upon consideration seemed fitting, because right there at the end, there really wasn't much to say.
Of course, reading a comic adaptation of this great drama has a special, eery feeling considering the reality we currently live in. I remember when the news about outbreak started to become frequent and people were in lockdowns, a movie Contagion had a surge of renewed popularity and demand.
Why were people drawn to this scenario right now? Why would they want to watch a story about global pandemic while living through very real one?
There were debates, but one of the reasons was fear, because watching a fictional scenario unfold, apparently helps us to come to terms with our own fears and insecurities. The other reason is hope, because the movie, just like Resistance, shows humanity getting out of pandemic hell. Not unscathed, but they are getting out.

*I see that blurb and some reviews call her Zoe Meadows. In my arc copy she is Zoe Beck, so I'll stick to that, but it may change upon publication.

A haunting and original book.
This book will stay with you a long time after reading it.
At a summer festival people start getting ill after eating from one food stall. It turns out that the meat is from a poorly run meat farm and it releases an antibiotic resistant break of an illness on the world.
This book is so well illustrated that it makes the story even more dark.
Unbelievable that it was written years ago.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to the author, illustrator, publisher and NetGalley in allowing me to read in return for a review.

Synopsis: Reporter goes to Con. People start coming down with Con Crud. Twist it's not actually ConCrud its actually an antibiotic resistant bug,

Having grown up in a prep-er household, I've read more apocalyptic works then I care to count. They were very much a staple of what I read in High School. This book is something I would have inhaled back then.

However unlike the pieces of fiction I read in High School it feels like Cal McDermid has worked to ensure their work is rooted in science to the best of their ability. Which was nice to see.

My favorite part though is Kathryn Briggs' art. There are whole pages that I would sit and look at trying to dissect everything that was depicted. Especially towards the end of the novel as it begins to move towards an art style that we think of being similar to books from the middle ages. Drawing parallels to the destruction and chaos that the Black death caused.
I would recommend this book at minimum for Kathryn's illustrations in the last half of this book.;

I enjoyed this story. Kind of timely with world events what they are. This was my introduction to Val McDermid, and I sort of expected a crime novel, which this was not. However, it was a great story. Will need to seek out other work by McDermid. #Resistance #NetGalley

This graphic novel sounds really interesting as a blurb, but in reality it was rather boring to me. The artstyle was plain and not dynamic or inviting in any way. I think the idea was good enough, and as I understood it this is based off a novel. I think that format is probably better suited for this story.

Absolutely fantastic illustrations! I went into this thinking it was a crime novel. It definitely was not. It’s similar to what our world is experiencing with the pandemic. Interesting story line and very interesting as a graphic novel. Recommend if you’re looking for an interesting plot and are okay with UK English writing. As an American I get thrown off a little with that sometimes not understanding what their slang terms are but overall the book is still readable and interesting.

I usually turn to graphic novels when I want a quick easy read. Unfortunately for me this was just not it. There was a lot of text and it felt like it wasn’t the most organized graphic novel. I know this may not be the author’s fault but it was hard to follow on my kindle which was super frustrating.

Th premise of the book also felt like it was literally summarizing 2020. There were some differences but it just didn’t surprise or intrigue me enough. I wanted to read it based on the author and what I’ve heard about all his books. Unfortunately it fell short for me.

ARC received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this informative and compelling ARC in return for an honest review. I don't usually read graphic novels, but when I realized it was written by one of my favourite authors, Val McDermid, specializing in crime and suspense, I could not resist requesting the book. I was thrilled when my request was granted.

This is an account of an antibiotic-resistant pandemic that began at an outdoor music festival in a field in England. About 150,000 spectators were in attendance, and some started out being ill with a bacterial-caused gastrointestinal illness. Some of the audience and a couple of musicians died, but those who survived recovered within 24 hours. The infection source was traced to pork sausages at a food truck run by Sam and his wife. Before this, Sam's sausages had been considered the best sold, and the business had the reputation of being hygienic. Unfortunately, the supplier obtained pork from animals raised in cramped, unsanitary conditions. This was unknown to Sam and his wife. Their reputation was ruined, their restaurant was burned down, and the family had to leave the area under threat.

Those who recovered from the gastrointestinal illness soon broke out with skin lesions that turned septic, and many died. Others were asymptomatic or presymptomatic and able to spread the disease. There was no cure. Soon, thousands were ill, and bodies were buried in backyards or set on fire. A few appeared to be immune to the disease.

A leading character in the story is a female reporter named Zoe. She interviewed medical professionals, doctors, specialists working for a cure and even made a couple of visits to the filthy, polluted pig farm. It becomes apparent that she is immune to the disease. Her husband was concerned that she might carry the disease to him and their two young sons when she comes home. Despite her good health, her family succumbed to the sickness. As the deal disease spread in Great Britain, efforts to find a timely cure were futile. The Queen was too ill to perform her duties and asked Prince Charles to dissolve Parliament. Millions were dying worldwide, and governments were breaking down. Anarchy spread amongst the living. Officials covered up the extent of the disease.

A scientist in Australia observed the plague was ending due to a lack of hosts who were susceptible to the bacteria. He also estimated that there were only about 2 million people left alive worldwide. This was a grim forecast of what could actually occur unless the world becomes better prepared. This was a well-researched book about a fictional pandemic and the science involved. It was terrifying in its implications. Having lived through a year of COVID and hoping for my vaccine soon, this book may be upsetting or frightening to some readers. I found it both informative and scary.

I felt that author Val McDermid and illustrator Kathryn Briggs told a harrowing story that is more pronounced and worrisome during the present pandemic.