Nights of the Living Dead: An Anthology
Paperback | Digital Book | Audio CD
Edited by Jonathan Maberry & George A. Romero
St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: July 11th, 2017

In 1968, a horror movie from director George A. Romero came out called Night of the Living Dead. Nearly 50 years later, zombie horror is “alive” and well, with hit shows like The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series. Over the past decade, we’ve seen a renaissance of zombie fiction in all forms of entertainment, from comics to novels like World War Z (Max Brooks) and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (Seth Grahame-Smith) to TV and film. Zombie even manage to cross over into other genres. The TV series iZombie takes the flesh eaters into the world of police forensics and the underground “brain trade.” Movies like Warm Bodies (2013) showed zombies can be romantic and of course Shaun of the Dead (2004) proved they can be the butt of jokes.

Though, there was a time when zombies were not the “it” thing in horror, but back in 1989, an undead anthology called Book of the Dead (edited by John Skipp & Craig Spector) made zombie literature cool again. Nights of the Living Dead is a collection of original zombie short stories all based in the world Romero built. What’s really interesting is reading the introductions by Romero himself and co-editor, author, and unabashed Romero fanboy, Jonathan Maberry.

The Last Zombie: Before the After #2
Written By Brian Keene
Art by Fred Perry
Tones by Robby Bevard
Cover by Joe Wight
Antarctic Pres
Release Date: November 21, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

Reviewer bias up front: I’m all about the zombies. I can’t get enough of them. I want it all: books, comics, games, movies, television shows, costumes, races, and pub crawls. I’m all in. However, even with my near blinding infatuation with zombie stories, I can still recognize the good stories from the bad; the originals from the derivatives. Here’s my opening argument: The Last Zombie: Before the After is a damn good comic series regardless of genre. Period.

The Last Zombie is a different breed of zombie book that takes place years after the zombie apocalypse has run its course. Dr. Ian Scott is part of a mission to find out what happened to the FEMA bunker in West Virginia. They lost all contact with the bunker which also housed his fiancée, Jen. Along the journey from Colorado to West Virginia, Ian contracted the zombie virus. He has been secretly injecting himself with the precious, experimental zombie vaccine that the team is transporting to the FEMA bunker. Even with the vaccine, Ian is slowly deteriorating and succumbing to the virus. And Doctor Federman is beginning to piece together Ian’s secret.