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 Development Hell: World War Z Trailer Released

Between our choice to cover the Hellblazer cancellation yesterday and our decision afterwards to pour out a couple in memorium of the book (and if we filtered the pours through our kidneys, well, we didn’t come here for a semantics argument, and it’s the thought that counts, and fuck you, anyway), we missed the release of the first trailer for the upcoming movie World War Z, based on the Max Brooks novel.

If you read the original book, you know the conceit is that it’s an oral history of an old-school, Romero-style slow zombie apocalypse, told years after the world pulled together, changed the nature of military tactics to deal with shambling ghouls who can only be killed by a bullet to the head, and won the war.

And if you watch this trailer, you’ll see that, well, this is none of those things.

Joss Whedon And The Zombie Apocalypse Vote

Crisis On Infinite Midlives is a comics-based Website, and therefore we try to advance no political opinions nor particular ideological agendas.

However, even if we are unwilling to endorse any political positions, as genre geeks there are two things that we care about almost more than anything in the world: the opinion of Joss Whedon – creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and director of Avengers – and the impending and inevitable zombie apocalypse.

And, even though we would never think to tell you for whom to vote for in the impending United States Presidential election, nor would we tell you who we personally intend to vote for, when Joss and the zombie apocalypse collide in a single political endorsement video? Well, we feel we have a duty to present it to you.

So, without further ado, here is Joss Whedon, explaining the best of all possible reasons we have heard to date to vote for Mitt Romney.

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.

Right There On The Shelf: The Walking Dead #89 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review may contain spoilers. Such as the fact that zombies have taken over the world. Tread lightly.

There’s been a lot of handwringing in the comics / zombie community (Which is a small community, but they throw great parties… except at the end your dick rots off. And not because of the zombie thing. But I digress.) about how AMC fired The Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont – about a week after he hyped season two at SDCC, no less – and how that and threatened budget cuts meant that the The Walking Dead was doomed.

And as someone who watched that show from the first episode and who bought season one on Blu-Ray the day it came out, allow me to go on record to say: who gives a shit?

Sure, the show is fun, and anything that puts comic stories in front of Joe Blow can only be good for the industry (Ghost Rider movies excepted), but the show was only ever second fiddle to Robert Kirkman’s original comic book. And if you’ve ever seen the show and you haven’t checked out the comic book? Well, that’s stupid. And you’re stupid for not doing it.

Max Brooks. Steve Niles. FIGHT!: Vampires vs. Zombies Tonight On Deadliest Warrior

How awesome is this?

Tonight on the Deadliest Warrior Season 3 finale the show goes live to discuss the undead. Max Brooks and Steve Niles argue for the cause of zombies and vampires respectively:

Los Angeles, CA, September 8, 2011 – After an overwhelmingly positive response, which included strong ratings and online traffic, to the first-ever LIVE “Deadliest Warrior” special event in August, Spike TV’s hit series, “Deadliest Warrior” is upping the ante to cap off a groundbreaking third season with an even bigger, supersized, 2.5 hour LIVE finale event (#dwlive). Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and a surprise special guest join hosts Richard “Mack” Machowicz, Geoff Desmoulin and Dr. Armand Dorian to discuss and analyze the episode and results, answer fan Facebook (via the “Deadliest Warrior” wall) and Twitter questions in real time (@Warriors_Den), reveal never-before-seen footage, including a special visit to the ER to see a day in the life of Dr. Dorian and make an exclusive announcement “Deadliest Warrior” fans won’t want to miss. In addition, Spike TV is partnering with cutting edge audience participation company Loyalize to debut the simultaneous, live broadcast of real-time viewer engagement and polling results from fans voting on dwlive.spike.com.

The supersized LIVE event of “Deadliest Warrior” premieres Wednesday, September 14 from 9:00PM-11:30PM (ET/ tape delay PT) on Spike TV. The event will be the first to televise live, instant audience participation and second-by-second voting results as part of the on-air broadcast on Spike TV.

It’s like undead chocolate meets unholy peanut butter. Frighteningly delicious!

Tune in tomorrow, when I hopefully will have a recap and finalized plans in event of a Zombie-Vamp Apocalypse!