A few comic adaptions of the Resident Evil games have been published over the years. Here you'll find some information on those comics, and my thoughts on them.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica

Originally published in Hong Kong, these comics were translated and released in English by Wildstorm/DC. Released in four volumes, they follow the Code Veronica game pretty faithfully, right down to the puzzles and random herbs around the place. Chris appears in all but the second book, trying to find his sister and getting caught up in Alexia Ashford's twisted web.

The first thing you'll notice about these comics however, being adaptions of largely silent games, is the fact that everyone feels to need to constantly talk about what's going on around them. Rarely is there ever silence, and the things that the characters would usually be thinking are instead spoken out aloud, to allow non-gamers to follow the plot (which we already know). For example, why placing a crest in a door would suddenly allow it to open.

Chris is oddly characterised throughout. He's portrayed as an action junkie who gets his thrills with hand to hand combat with Umbrella experiments. Yes, he actually does uppercut a Hunter, and put his foot through a Bandersnatch's face. He runs around constantly swearing and calling everything a freak, while telling it to 'come get some' or to meet his shotgun. Overall he's really not a whole lot like the Chris we know, and seems to enjoy punching things a bit too much.

If you enjoyed the Code Veronica storyline, chances are you'll enjoy this one, as it's pretty much exactly the same (with a few minor changes/additions). With the exception of course of everything being spelt out at every turn. The art is also rather nice, particularly if you like the Asian style, and there are a lot of full page painted shots that are especially nice.

Online Comic

A few years back there was an online comic that followed Chris' scenario in weekly installments. Each week featured Chris in battle with some boss or monster from the game, or discovering vital plot points. The dialogue can be unintenionally hilarious at times, and the story obviously has *huge* gaps in it (no point in having the comic still going a year later), but overall it's not awful.

Characterisation wise, from what is there, Chris is again all gung-ho about death and seems pretty damn stupid at times (his line about the Zombies turning into Hunters is a prime example). Not the best stuff you'll ever see, but it's not really about delving into Chris' soul, it's just about snippits of action from the game.

You can download the saved strips here (zip file, 750KB).