Everything Dead & Dying is a Definitive Zombie Comic
Everything Dead & Dying is a story of broken loneliness set amongst a backdrop of the undead. It’s a story with such a strong footing in a thematic humanity that I don’t think it would be fair as a critic to call it a zombie story because no other story of the risen dead has captured the pain of the other in such a painful way in recent history. Tate Brombal (Barbalien, Batgirl) and Jacob Phillips (That Texas Blood, Newburn), along with Pip Martin and Aditya Bidikar, launch this mini-series with a premise that reveals the still-beating heart of why zombie stories remain relevant in the cultural zeitgeist.
From Image Comics:
Jack Chandler is the sole survivor of the zombie apocalypse in his rural farming community, but rather than eliminate them, he has chosen to continue living alongside the undead—including the husband and adopted daughter he fought so hard to have. But when his town is discovered by outsiders, Jack suddenly becomes the one thing standing in the way of those who hope to kill his family for good.
There’s such a profound loneliness to Everything Dead & Dying. Being made whole after a life of yearning to be loved, to have that torn away would create such a deep rift inside anyone. In zombie media, we constantly see people, humans, who are painted as having lost their minds for keeping loved ones alive. But there’s so much you don’t see of those people from the other end of the barrel of the gun you point at them because you believe they are the danger to you. There is just incredible craftsmanship in storytelling by Brombal that is made whole by Phillips’ art being so stellar. There is a blur between the lines of what we know and what the narrator believes because of the artist’s use of washes and Brombal’s storytelling and dialogue choices.
We are often set with the POV of survivors moving across strange lands that were once so human and familiar to them, but this flips the script. What if we follow one of those who made a life of solidarity by making the risky choice of keeping those they love alive after their mortal life has ended? It’s a really painful point of view to sit with when your main character is explaining how his queerness locked love and belonging away from him for so long. But then only to get it and have it torn away? There is no pain more horrific than I can imagine. To create a scenario where I am siding with someone keeping zombies alive is tough, but this comic does it without making me realize I was doing it until I finished it. It’s getting to see from the side of so many people we see as enemies in stories like The Walking Dead to actually humanize and tell a real story using a similar structure.
Without delving into anything that isn’t spoiled by the summary of the book, I can say it is a very different approach to the zombie narrative that explores loss and pain in a very new way. Each page turn felt like a knife twisting further and further inside me as I saw more of Jack Chandler’s reality and undead reality.
It’s a series that any fan of zombies, horror, or crying needs to pre-order now from their local comic shop. Just make sure if you follow this place with your loved ones, you buy chains that keep them in place so you don’t get turned because Everything Dead & Dying isn’t a manual for a healthy existence in the apocalypse, but a heartbreaking tale of loss in it.