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Comics: And Now for Some Zombie Action!

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By: DThompson | in: Books, Comics, Design |

I’ve been following zombies in print and on screen ever since I scared myself half to death watching the original Night Of The Living Dead. I was twelve and the idea of being eaten alive seemed not only gruesomely terrifying but entirely possible.

Walking Dead

So possible, in fact, that I was up all night not long after literally barfing in terror. Time has changed my view of hungry dead pople from vomit inducing nightmares to good clean canibalistic fun. I cannot get enough.
Though George Romero (and every Italian director in the history of the world) has made canibalistic zombies a mainstay of horror cinema, the zombie reach extends beyond your DVD store. Recently the comics medium has given us some excellent examples of what you can do with a few live folk and a whole planet full of ravening dead types.

The Walking Dead

The best running story, The Walking Dead, is written by Robert Kirkman , drawn by Tony Moore and Charlie Allard and published by Image Comics. It’s an excellent black and white soap opera gore-fest detailing the interestingly mundane struggles of an icreasingly small band of survivors as they fight and bicker and make stupid decisions and get eaten. The Walking Dead is available in six collected graphic novels but the overall story is far from complete and it can go on for a while longer as far as I’m concerned. Moore supplies the art for book one and the covers for all six and while I liked his drawings better than Charlie Allard’s who takes over from book two on, it wasn’t enough of a let down for me to stop reading this cool long-form zombiegeddon sure-to-be-a-masterpiece.
Perhaps the only down side to Walking Dead is its lack of color. Somehow it’s not as much fun when the gut ripping isn’t in in-your-face Technicolor red. Fret not! Kirkman has also penned the one-shot Marvel Zombies and that is in color. Lots and lots of color. The story is interesting enough, as you follow a group of entirely too chatty zomified Marvel Comics heroes on their search for food (which would be you and me, bub). I admit to expecting something different but Kirkman has written a deliberately over the top tale and the art work in service to it is everything you could ask for. Well, as long as you asked for something like “Could I please see Magneto ripped limb from limb by Zombie Hulk and eaten by Zombie Captain America and Zombie Spiderman?” Kirkman claims in the introduction that he was afraid of being typecast as “The Zombie Guy” but worse things could happen to all of us if the result is more books like Marvel Zombies.
Eagle One Media has recently released all 46 issues of the mid-80’s zombie classic Dead World on CD-Rom. If you have a large monitor I think you’ll find this a great way to read these otherwise unobtainable issues. If your monitor is smaller (like mine, ha ha) then it’s annoying as hell since the .pdf format only fits on screen at about 30% causing all manner of squinting and swearing.

The Walking Dead

Dead World was originally drawn by Vincent Locke, now a big-time talent known for the A History Of Violence graphic novel. Back in Vince’s Dead World days I found his art to be virtually incomprehensible. I recall puzzling over frames wondering if characters were male or female and if Locke had actually drawn 500 zombies attacking a school bus without ever once lifting his pen from the paper. Well, we all start somewhere and Mr. Locke’s then questionable art was in service to a truly excellent story. It’s more action oriented than The Walking Dead yet it still provides the requisite idiotic living people and slathering zombie hordes. Dead World is a steal on DVD as you get every bit of it for twenty bucks (American).
So, the question is – If forty dollars (American) nets you 46 issues of gut snappin’, bone cruchin’ Dead World and the blood soaked goof off of Marvel Zombies too – What exactly are you saving your money for? Food?


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Posted on February 12, 2007

Comments

2 Responses to “Comics: And Now for Some Zombie Action!”

  1. jesse james on February 9th, 2008 2:46 pm

    hey man im a big zombie freak and if you into any art write me back


  2. dal thompson on April 1st, 2008 8:41 am

    well my art isn’t the best but i just want u or someone to look at them to see if it any good. thanks


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