Advance Review: ‘Everything Dead & Dying’ #1 Is – Thankfully – Not Your Typical Zombie Story

Up until now, it hasn’t seemed like there was any new ground to tread upon in zombie stories.

For 60 years, the zombie subgenre has horrified and fascinated us across entertainment platforms, beginning with movies and television including Night of the Living Dead, comics like The Walking Dead, and games such as Left 4 Dead. After all this time, there just doesn’t seem like there are any new zombie stories left to be told.

That’s what makes Everything Dead & Dying so intriguing and engaging.

It begins with farmer Jack Chandler going through his typical day. Having breakfast with his husband and daughter. Greeting Stuart the friendly mailman. Milking the cows and checking on the crops. Yet every so often, a panel filled with decaying flesh and rotting teeth abruptly interrupts the flow.

Instead of flashbacks, it’s reality seeping in. Everyone other than Jack is dead – or a zombie anyway. (He is somehow immune from the virus that causes zombification.) In this tale, written by Tate Brombal, Jack’s coping mechanism for the death of his entire town is to act as if he is going about his day before the zombie infestation occurred. Call it equal parts The Walking Dead and Groundhog Day.

Brombal’s writing is in top form here, and the setup is masterful. Brombal hints that things are not quite as tidy as they seem in Jack’s life. And even when the zombified life is revealed (It’s not a spoiler as publisher Image Comics has been very upfront about the story’s true nature), there is still more mystery and other surprises to uncover.

Artist Jacob Phillips’ panels are wonderfully plotted and equally abrupt. We see Jack playing with his beautiful young daughter in one panel, only to see him holding a dead version of her in the next. Phillips repeats this technique through the premiere issue to horrifying and terribly effective ends.

Having established these interesting characters and even more fascinating situations, the creative team faces a significant pivot at the end of this first chapter. If they can maintain this momentum, they will not only have one of the best limited series of the year, but they will have upended the typical zombie story – and breathed new life into a tired subgenre.

Everything Dead & Dying #1 will be available in comic book shops and on digital platforms on September 3 from Image Comics.