Expanding upon the lore of The Last of Us, American Dreams delivers a brilliant narrative focused on character building and making us, the readers, immediately care about what’s going on. Presented with some beautiful art that blends an element of style with reality without ever going over the edge, it’s nice to receive a comic that simply isn’t a marketing tool. It may be too early to peg The Last of Us: American Dreams as a breakout hit of 2013, but as of now the comic is certainly on the path of such a thing if the first issue is indicative of the overall quality of the series.
Taking something from one medium to another is by no means an easy feat nor is it one that results in immediate success. At times some rather brilliant moves can be done when a film/TV show is expanded upon by becoming a novel or something else, yet most of the time it’s obvious we’re only receiving a franchise expansion as a means of a marketing tool.