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By the Time I Get to Dallas Book 3

Story: Colin Devonshire
Inks: Dario Fas Marin
Pencils: Juanfrancisco Moyano
Colors: Jacinto Moyano
Letters: Jaymes Reed
Contributing Editor: Matthew Idelson

Go HERE to buy this and parts 1 - 2

If an 80% infection rate affects the world's human population, one where those infected feel an unstoppable urge to migrate to one part of the globe and will let themselves die in trying, there will be a vast collapse of civilization. It could happen within days. Only those left will be the ones who have enough food and armaments to keep themselves protected fed and safe.

That's the world that is unfolding in Colin Devonshire's great By the Time I Get to Dallas. In its third installment we see our hero Rudy Deckart with his cohorts 'Goose' Rex and Anna travel via yacht in an attempt to get close and study the pandemic's effects at point zero: Dallas Texas. By the way, the white tuba horn looking things are magnetic sensors the scientists Goose and Rex are taking with them to measure perhaps the reason 80% of the population is responding to this 'homing signal.'

Wacky Wombats.

Rudy Deckart is a dropout medical student who recently lost his girlfriend. She left him in a huff, wanting to -ironically- go to Dallas herself.

A few new details emerge with part 3. Children are unaffected, there's a scene in a 'Chucky Cheese' clone called 'Wacky Wombats' where some kids are holed up living on scavenged goods. There's an armed militia protecting Atlantic City. Rudy does indeed get a signal from his girlfriend's cellphone which his science friends Goose and Rex can amplify, pinpointing her location to somewhere in Pennsylvania.

It has a heart.

For the most part, this seems like a filler installment. Some interesting things happen sure enough. By choosing his character to witness this story unfold, an unassuming medical student, Colin Devonshire handicaps us from getting closer into the coils of his world-ending concept. If he chose to tell this story through, say, The President or a key cabinet member, or an editor of a news channel there'd be a different take on this surely. Where Colin's writing shines is in the little things: a touching account of Rudy treating a sick girl's infected throat. I like stuff like that.

We'll see where this story goes in part 4 and on. I'd like to see Rudy really challenged by these circumstances a bit more.

Next Tuesday:

Code 45
A Montreal subway driver who attends rave parties and hears rumors of Dragons! Cool!