Jeremiah - The Comic
English Title: The Survivors


Volume 1, "Talons of Blood" of the translation of Hermann Huppen's "Jeremiah"
was published by Fantagraphics Books in 1982.

Full Bibliographic info & Hermann Huppen Biograpy details

It appears they published a second volume in 1983, "The Eyes That Burned" (4th
volume in the original series) but both volumes met with underwhelming success
(I found my copy of "Talons of Blood" in an Everything for a Buck bin) and
that was it for english translations.

For those who are only familiar with the television series there are some
extreme differences between the comics version and the TV series.  But that's
par for the course when it comes to Comics to TV adaptions.  Particularly in a
case when the source material is so obscure to an English speaking audience.

Most strikingly the fall of civilization isn't caused by the Big Death but
rather by social and racial unrest which tears apart urban civilization in
North America.

The End of The World as we know it

Without infrastucture civilization falls back to sustainable technology and
isolated communities and independant citystates.  So with no Big Death there
are folks of all ages around and after his parents die Jeremiah grows up under
the care of his aunt and uncle in the walled community of Bends Hatch.

Introducing Jeremiah

Rather than a streetwise survivor at this point Jeremiah's a naive country boy
who has grown up in the relative safety of Bends Hatch.  So he's young enough
to ignore the danger of raiders and stays out after curfew when he spots a
stray mule.

Jeremiah & the Mule

Which brings about his first meeting with Kurdy.

Introducing Kurdy

Introducing Kurdy 2

Kurdy is everything Jeremiah isn't, rather than a naive and idealistic youth
he's a pragmatic survivor who knows Jeremiah's attempt to warn Bends Hatch
about the raiders will get him killed.  So he knocks out Jeremiah before he
can be spotted and when Jeremiah wakes up his village has been wiped out.  He
finds the feather from Kurdy's hat in the ruins and figures he was one of the
raiders but after an ambush fails and Kurdy passes up the chance to kill him
Jeremiah accepts Kurdy's story that he went in after the raiders had finished.
While Kurdy isn't a raider he has no qualms about taking what he needs from
the dead.  One of many reasons he's survived so long as a loner.

Jeramiah tags along with Kurdy not having anywhere else to go in hopes Kurdy
will lead him somewhere where he can get justice for Bends Hatch.  Kurdy knows
that the only justice left in the world is what you make for yourself but he
can't abandon Jeremiah to get himself killed learning that so he lets him
follow and hopes he won't get them into too much trouble.

A vain hope but Jeremiah's headstrong actions do get Kurdy involved in
bringing down "Fat Eye", who lead the raiders and sold the survivors of Bends
Hatch to the Red Nation.  Volume one ends with the pair continuing to wander,
now as real partners

Off to new adventures

I suppose you could think of the story as a post apocalyptic Tom & Huck
adventure.  I imagine future volumes dealt with Jeremiah's growth into
someone more like Kurdy but that's pure supposition.

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