Prime Real Estate At Close-Out Prices: Marvel To Publish George Romero’s Empire of The Dead

Back in February, we reported that Marvel was teasing some kind of comic with one of those text-based promo images reading, “…of The Dead,” and that George Romero, the director and creator of Night of The Living Dead and Dawn of The Dead (not the one with Ving Rhames; the good one, with the guts and exploding heads and the story), had also announced that he was working on some kind of zombie comic for Marvel.

And at the time, I speculated that, rather than Romero working on, say, a Marvel Zombies story or anything like that, that instead he would take the opportunity that comic books, with their unlimited special effects budgets, to tell a truly epic story about the zombie apocalypse. You know, like World War Z, only with blood, and people getting eaten. I realize that those are optional elements for stories about the walking dead who exist only to feast upon the flesh of the living, but you know: they’re nice bonuses.

That announcement in February was that the book would be released in the fall. Well, it is the fall… and Romero and Marvel has announced that they will be releasing Empire of The Dead, a 15-issue miniseries staring in January. And that it is based on a 300-page screenplay that Romero wrote that was originally intended to be a movie set in New York City during his Night of The Living Dead zombie apocalypse. And why is he doing it as a comic book?

“I could never afford to shoot there,” Romero, 73, says with a laugh.

I am wrong a lot, but Goddamn am I glad I called this one right.

When There Is No More Room In Hell, The Dead Will Wait In Line For Marvel’s One Men’s Room: New Marvel Teaser Poster Released

It’s been a little while since Marvel dumped out one of their recently ubiquitous, one-word teaser posters to hype an upcoming new title, but a new one entered the wild yesterday, following a tease at a retailer’s breakfast yesterday… and as an aside: why does Marvel seem to have so many breakfasts for retailers? It was a retailer’s breakfast at New York Comic Con where Marvel teased The Superior Spider-Man, and it just seems… weird. I know that the owner of my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to consider making their establishment the first stop on my comic store / local bar routine, would much prefer a retailer’s cocktail hour. Or at least I presume that he would, considering that every time I leave his store, I hear him mutter, “Christ, I need a drink.” But I’m getting a little off point here.

The point is that there is another intriguing teaser poster for some new Marvel book coming this fall. And the bad news is that, like all the other teasers preceding it, it gives almost no information on the actual book – including no creator names.

But the good news is that Marvel apparently got Ike Perlmutter to sign off on the budget for a couple of additional words for the teaser! Which you can check out after the jump.

George Romero Only Likes Some Of The Zombies, Some Of The Time

According to recent tweets by CNN GeekOut! and Newsarama, last night’s season two premiere of The Walking Dead was watched by over 7 million viewers. Huge numbers! Wow, who didn’t see it last night? Well, me – but I had an excuse. I was catching up on Red while the DVR was recording The Walking Dead. Insert your “geriatric killers are kind of like zombies” joke here.

But, you know who also didn’t watch The Walking Dead last night?

George Romero.

Yup, the father of modern zombie horror as we know it is not a fan of The Walking Dead.