Emperor of zombie fiction George Romero brings his next undead epic to Marvel Comics. The writer/director teams up with Alex Maleev for Empire of the Dead #1.
At New York Comic Con the legendary creator talks with Marvel.com about working in the comic medium:
“I grew up reading comics and I’ve always loved them,” Romero says. “The good ones stretch the imagination. Writing a comic book does the same thing for me. It encourages me to explore new ideas and characters that I might not have tried otherwise. I can turn off the part of my brain that’s always worrying about how to do things, like how I’m going to shoot a particular scene or how much it’s going to cost. Of course, that time may come, if we adapt EMPIRE OF THE DEAD for other media.”
Romero’s previous films have been set in rural isolated environments but this time he’s letting the undead bite the Big Apple.
“I grew up in New York, so it’s in my blood,” he says. “I’ve never consciously avoided setting a film here. It just seemed appropriate do it now, for EMPIRE OF THE DEAD, which wouldn’t be called [that] unless it was set in the Empire State. I wanted a setting readers would recognize so that I could portray a familiar place in an unfamiliar way.”
What could be worse than an army of undead?
“Evolution doesn’t necessarily stop just because you’re dead,” he teases.
“I promised [Marvel Editor-in-Chief] Axel Alonso that I wouldn’t discuss this until [New York Comic-Con, but yes, I’ve been writing about some new predators in EMPIRE OF THE DEAD, and they’re hungry for the same kind of food as the zombies.”
Empire of the Dead #1 of 5 begins in January.
By Editor