George A. Romero's Land of the Dead hit wide release last week, the Dawn of the Dead sequel is in the works, The Walking Dead continues to earn buzz in comics circles and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Zombie fever is in full swing in pop culture, which leads to any number of folks jumping into the pool. The question is, do we really need more zombie comics? The answer is, if they're as good as Zombie Tales, than hell yes we do! Zombie Tales is an anthology, featuring a half-dozen stories of varying tones that explore different aspects of the zombie. From the humorous to the horrific, the stories of how it affects people emotionally to how it affects them physically to how it effects their society, these six tales cover a fair amount of ground and provide a book that any zombie fan should get a big kick out of.
"Severance," by Michael Nelson and Joe Abraham, is probably my favorite of the bunch. Like Land of the Dead, "Severance" explores the human side of horror in a zombie apocalypse, and shows how some people will use anything as an excuse to get richer, even if it means causing pain to others. Nelson does a really good job of conveying the personal horror of a long-running manipulation even though he begins the story at what is basically the end, and with clever dialogue and effective moments, tells a long story in short story page length. The art by Joe Abraham is perfectly suited for the tale as well, with Abraham's facility with facial expressions and emotional storytelling serving the needs of the story quite well.
There are two other stories in this volume that explore what human society is like after the apocalypse, and they are also among my favorites. Mark Waid and newcomer Carlos Magno deliver a story that hits on the universal fear of standardized testing with an unusual twist, and Waid cleverly weaves the story of the zombie apocalypse into the test-taking so that the exposition and the rising action of the story are one and the same, leaving him a couple of pages in which to deliver the twist of the story. "For Pete's Sake" is an interesting story of loss and survival by Johanna Stokes that hits on one of the true horrors of a zombie infection, the loss of loved ones that requires a sort of willingness to let go or even participate in their loss yourself. However, "For Pete's Sake" is notable for me not just as an effective story that I connected with, but as my first look at new Fallen Angel artist J.K. Woodward. Woodward's artwork is indeed beautiful, a mixture of painted and photo real look that can look a little bit too posed at times but is generally very good for storytelling and mood. It's good for this zombie tale, and I think it will be good for Fallen Angel as well.
John Rogers and Andy Kuhn collaborate on "Daddy Smells Different," another tale of the personal cost of a zombie plague that has an easily predicted twist but which is still effective because of the way that they keep the reader guessing throughout. The other two tales feature Keith Giffen, once on art and once on writing, with Andrew Cosby doing writing chores on the former and Ron Lim handling the art chores on the latter. The Giffen/Cosby "I, Zombie" is a mildly funny take that seems to features zombie dialogue straight out of The Hulk or Bizarro, and it features one of my pet peeves in an anthology, a "to be continued" that means the story is really little more than a snippet. "Dead Meat" by Giffen and Lim is a more effective use of the cliffhanger as ending, telling the tale of a group of special ops soldiers who meet up with zombies and the aftermath of that encounter. Both of these tales are the weak links in Zombie Tales, but both have something interesting to offer as well.
The inside back cover of Zombie Tales features an ad for Zombie Tales: Oblivion, another zombie anthology from Boom! featuring a number of the creators from this volume. Based on the strength of this one, I'll be waiting for that comic with the same anticipation as a zombie lingering outside an all-you-can-eat human-filled mall.
