Zombie Comics

[Max Gardner]

An odd trend I've noticed lately - there seem to be a great many zombie comics popping up.  Possibly as a result of "28 Days Later" and that lousy "Dawn of the Dead" remake? The best of the bunch so far, I'd say, is "The Walking Dead." Nothing particularly deep or esoteric, just a solid epic zombie-movie-in-comic-form about the raw emotion and vulnerability that cripple and empower people when the chips are down and the zombies are out in force.  Another recent zombie comic - the first issue came out this week, in fact - is "Remains," written by Steve Niles, who penned "30 Days of Night," soon to be a Sam Raimi movie.  "Remains" begins with a massive nuclear explosion that scorches just about everyone in the world.  Then they get up and start shambling around, eating flesh.  The main character and his girlfriend are holed up inside a huge casino with an ocean of zombies outside.  Niles is also writing a comic adaptation of Romero's original "Dawn of the Dead." Odd how nearly all of these comics feature proper zombies, rather than the new, more popular, less scary "marathon" zombies that move faster than they ever did when they were alive.

[Tilebreaker]

Dark Horse a few years ago had a "Zombie World" series, that i think did pretty well.  Haven't read any of the new Zombie titles, but that one was alirght.

[Mofo Rising]

THE WALKING DEAD is a very good comic.  In fact, it's probably the comic I most look forward to picking up at the present time.  I am disappointed that the original artist has now moved on, as his art was amazing and one of the reasons I looked forward to the comic every month.  The new artist seems alright, and he does try to follow the original style of the comic, but it's still not quite as great as the original.  Still, the comic is very much story based, so I still look forward to reading it.

Steve Niles has exploded on the scene in the fast few years.  I don't think anybody is putting out as many comics as he is right now.  Unfortunately, I'm not really a fan of his work.  None of his comics really do anything for me.  I'm happy that somebody is out there putting out straightforward horror comics.  I just don't like his very much.  The only comic of his I look forward to right now is FREAKS OF THE HEARTLAND and that is almost entirely to the artwork (and I'm not a huge follower of artwork for its own sake.)

I thought the original ZOMBIE WORLD comics were very good, with Mike Mignola and Pat McKeown.  But those were just the setup.  The rest of the series (which seems to have now died out) was hit or miss.

Still, zombies.  A topic I can never get enough of.  Does anybody remember that HITMAN story with the zombie seaworld denizens?

[Max Gardner]

I don't particularly care for Niles' work either.  "30 Days of Night" was poorly written, but the concept was cool enough to keep it going.  The sequel, "Dark Days," was miserable.  There's a third series currently in circulation, "Return to Barrow," which ties the two previous chapters together and is by far the best of the three.

Also, though it isn't exactly a zombie comic, I should mention "Priest," a Korean manga currently being released by TokyoPop.  It's up to book 11, and well worth checking out.  It's possibly my favorite comic at the moment, and I look forward to a new book every few months.  Ivan Isaacs, a priest who sold half his soul to the demon Belial, travels the Old West fighting zombies and other weird supernatural stuff.  There's a lot more to the story than that - in fact there are about four books' worth of plot with very little action - and every character is given proper attention and depth.  The art is amazing as well, sort of a cross between Mike Mignola and Jhonen Vasquez.  The series reminds me strongly of Joe R. Lansdale's work, particularly "Dead in the West." "Priest" doesn't get really good until book 3 or thereabouts, where it turns from something merely entertaining to something more unique and complex.

[odinn7]

Geez, when I first saw the subject, I thought it was about zombie comedians. I could picture Seinfeld after he's been bitten and turned..."This flesh eating...what's up with that?"