
The legendary George A. Romero was once quoted as saying the following:
“I was trying to come up with a concept about a new society, revolutionary... in political terms, that's taking over and devouring the old society.”
With, Night, Dawn, Day and Land of the Dead, Romero was obviously building up to this, each story becoming more epic than the last. This idea of a revolutionary society taking over the old one builds with the increasing apocalyptic nature of these stories.
With Diary and Survival of the Dead, it took that concept, which had been dangling in front of our faces, and whisked it away. We were instead treated to a more personal set of stories, which while still containing the brilliant social satire that we have all come to expect, falls short of the grand scope set up in the first four films.
Empire of the Dead, the new comic series written by Romero himself and illustrated by Alex Maleev, brings the idea of revolution back to the forefront, and slams the rotter's back in our faces, throwing a little social commentary our way too.

The first issue kicks off in a no-nonsense fashion, with members of the community loading trucks full of dead rats to feed the lower class. Overlooking the scene whilst on the hunt for clever meat, Barnum is interrupted by Penny Jones, a doctor sent by Columbia University to study the zombies, to see if they can be tamed in some way. Following Barnum around for the day, Penny runs into the mayor of New York, blows a zombies head off, drinks gin like a boss, and eventually makes a deal to take one of the clever rotter's to study, you know, your average zombie apocalypse afternoon.
The story is choc full of tough talking, back-chatting, low belting charmers who fill up New York with their ego's. While this would be perfect in a film, where we can eat these bad attitudes up, it at times doesn't translate awfully well to the comic medium. And while I myself am a very big fan of the movies preceding this comic and of Romero in general, I can get the gist of what's being put across. Your average casual comic reader who is in the mood for something with zombies in it may find it a little hard to understand why these characters are being such assholes to one another. Or even more to the point - when - these characters are being assholes to one another.
Alex Maleev is a genius. His art serves this story perfectly. This comic is dark, gritty, and full of attitude and where the writing may take a little guesswork, the art fills in those gaps, making New York just as dead as most of its inhabitants. Only Maleev could make Manhattan seedier than the sewers and subway systems underneath it.
Perhaps the most surprising element of this comic is the inclusion of vampires. (This is not a spoiler guys, it suggests this on the front cover of the comic)
This really made me sigh - loudly - during my first read through. But after a few days to let it stew, I realised two things.
Firstly, I remembered the above quote. I first saw it quoted at the end of a biography page on a cheap DVD copy of Night of the Living Dead. I feel by reading this issue that the zombies have done a great job of almost eradicating the human race not only in a physical sense, but also in a mental sense. The leftovers of humanity are either trying to hold on to the hope that this can somehow be fixed, and that the world will go back to normal, or are capitalising on the fact that there - in reality - is no hope for humanity, and that they may as well ride it out any way they can.
Vampires are here now to clean up the mess. Simple enough.
Secondly, Romero made the movie Martin, which is about a vampire, and that was an awesome film.
So anyone out there who reads this and sighs like I did, think about these two things.
The first issue of Empire of the Dead comes with a very high recommendation from me. The few small issues I had with it are all things that I know will improve as the story continues. I know that George A. Romero fans are divided, in that half hate his modern work, and half love everything he does. I sit on the latter side of the fence.
So chuck on the Day of the Dead soundtrack like I did, sit down and read it, and leave your delicious judgmental brain at the door...