COMICS: Zombie Tales

Imagine my surprise when I returned to work after my vacation and found a manila envelope addressed to yours truly waiting there for me. I thought at first it was a bundle of contract papers or shop drawings or some such, until I noticed the return address, which confused and frankly alarmed me: BOOM!

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that an unexpected package labeled BOOM! would give pause to the stoutest of souls. But instead of dousing it with a hose and calling the bomb squad, I decided to open it, and good thing I did: it contained a promo copy of Zombie Tales, published by BOOM! Studios/Atomeka.


I am so the target audience of this comic it's not even funny. I love zombies so much I created a blog written from the zombie POV. Hell, before I realized I had gotten a promo copy, I had commented on Dorian's review of the book that I was prepared to buy it, without hesitation, sight unseen. So that's $6.99 BOOM! loses in this deal. I hope my rave review will compensate them for at least that amount.

Rave review? Yes, indeed: I loved it. It's a compilation of short stories involving zombies to one extent or another, all done in different styles and apparently set in different zombie-infested worlds. In one world, zombie bites create additional zombies; in another world, the zombie virus is airborne. But all the stories worked for me on one level or another, either as humor, straightforward George A. Romero-type socio-political zombie commentaries, or as basic, spine-tingling horror.

The first story, "I, Zombie," written by Andrew Cosby and drawn by Keith Giffen, is the funniest, but also the most frustrating. It establishes a zombie protagonist who can be sympathized with, who speaks in a funny Hulk/Bizarro style ("Me am so hungry, me no can think"). It stretches farthest from traditional zombie portrayals, with its proactive zombie hero, and its winking acknowledgement of the reader ("Now, I know what you're thinking... what was all that light in the darkness, glimmer of hope crap? Please... you know how this works. That was just to get you to turn the page"). Entertaining -- but then it ends in an unexpected cliffhanger, when Ted the zombie adopts a zombie cat (Bub?) that some surviving humans describe as holding "the fate of all mankind". TO BE CONTINUED. What the?? That's CRAP! (Don't tell BOOM!, but as irritating as the cliffhanger is, I'll still buy the next issue for the continuation, even if they don't send me a review copy. I said don't tell them!!)

Next is "Severance," written by Michael Nelson (unfortunately, not MST3K's Michael Nelson), with pencils by Hero Squared's Joe Abraham. I like Abraham's art here better than on Hero, where it looked unfinished; and I liked the story, which is an effective revenge tale told in only 8 pages.

After that is "Daddy Smells Different," by John Rogers and Andy Kuhn. John Rogers is the screenwriter for Rush Hour 3, which immediately makes me hate him, but I have to set that aside and agree with Dorian: this is the best story in the book, true horror with a Serling-esque twist. I just wish the art were sized to fit the page properly.

Next we have "For Pete's Sake," by Johanna Stokes, with gorgeous painted art by J.K. Woodward. This is probably the most brutally emotional story in the book, concerning a religious woman's tending of her infected husband. Predictable but well-earned ending.

After that is "If You're So Smart..." by one of my current favorite writers, Mark Waid, and artist Carlos Magno. It's a fairly uninventive reworking of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": the winner loses. Clever test questions, though.

The final story is "Dead Meat," written by Keith Giffen and drawn by Ron Lim. I prefer Giffen as a writer, rather than an artist; his art on the first story on this collection is unappealingly sketchy. Ron Lim, though, I've been a fan of since his work on Mike Baron's Badger, about 15 (!!) years ago; he illustrated what was perhaps the best run on an always excellent comic. This story deals with an elite soldier sent to destroy a zombie enclave, who instead becomes infected, and seems destined to turn his military training against the humans who sent him into danger in the first place. A nice nihilistic ending to a varied but always-enjoyable short story comic collection that just happens to involve the living dead.