Entertainment Weekly had the following kind words to say about the series:

Some New Kind of Slaughter
Cool title. But dig this subtitle: ‘’Lost in the Flood (and How We Found Home Again) Diluvian Myths from Around The World.'’ No doubt comic buyers will see that and think, That sounds like the most boring comic book ever made. They would be mistaken. Slaughter takes a host of mythological and religious flood tales — plus a fictional storyline about an eco-warrior trying to reunite with her son after a natural disaster strikes — and attempts to fashion a new, modern myth for our environmentally challenged times. The baseline narrative thread follows Ziusudra, the proto-Noah of Sumerian myth, who is lost at sea in his massive ark and adrift with his own mind as he second-guesses himself and his divine direction. In response, his deity sends him visions of other flood yarns, including a well-realized story about Noah that reminds us how the God of the Bible used some fallen, nutty cats to execute his will.

FOR FANS OF… The Lone and Level Sands (Mann and Lewis’ previous collaboration); Age of Bronze; will also appeal to comparative lit and Kyoto Accord wonks.

DOES IT DELIVER? Well-researched, the dreamy, landscape-style storytelling alone is worth a recommendation. But here’s hoping that by story’s end Mann and Lewis have forged a truly relevant bond between the Joseph Campbell stuff and the Inconvenient Truth/post-Katrina subtext. A-

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Infuze once again has a look at our unfolding series, this time providing a full review of the work to-date:

The story of Noah and the flood is not the only occurrence of a flood story in the history of human civilisation. Dozens of societies separated by centuries of divergent cultural evolution share similar stories, some older than the biblical story as in the case of the Epic of Gilgamesh, others are much newer, and spread out as diversely as the Middle East, Australia, India, China, Africa and the Americas.

The four-part Some New Kind of Slaughter from Archaia Studios Press is an exercise in parallels, driven more by character stories and human interaction than it is by direct linear story telling. Writer A. David Lewis and artist mpMann together attempt to map the shared and recurring legend of the world flood, comparing the details but with its real focus on the human story of each. The multiple story threads and time periods weave and interact, thematically rather than physically, presenting an overall vision of mankind’s struggle with faith and personal tragedy in the face of awe-inspiring natural disaster.

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Just before the holidays, Greg Burgas (corrected: sorry, Greg!) gave a run-down of this week’s new comics, a week he calls “an embarrassment of riches,” including some nice words about Some New Kind of Slaughter #1 in his discussion:

Lewis and Mann worked on The Lone and Level Sands, a graphic novel about Moses, so it’s perhaps not surprising that they chose to tackle another Old Testament story, that of Noah. However, they expand their focus to include all flood myths, and then add a modern twist to the story, as an environmentalist tries to warn people in the present of the cost of abusing the world. The two creators give the narration duties to a Mesopotamian king of the land of Sharrupak (I would look him up, but I don’t want to because I want to let the story speak for itself), who was told by his god Enki to build an ark before the land was flooded. As he stands on his ark, he experiences visions of other cultures and other floods, plus the story in the modern world of Sharon Boatwright (clever name, there), who is about to be caught in the Mother of All Storms. It’s a nice device, because it keeps the narrative voice consistent but still allows Lewis and Mann to jump around in time. Despite the rather serious and gloomy subject matter, plus the fact that all the stories are essentially the same, there’s still a great deal of tension in the way the king narrates and experiences the myths. Of course, the modern story is unwritten, so that has plenty of potential too. Lewis and Mann never confuse the reader, which is important in a broad amalgamation like this, and they raise some very pertinent questions about man and his relationship not only to the world in which he lives, but with his gods as well.

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