Surely the credit for being one of the most ambitious of the non-mainstream comics publishers has to go to the company known as Double Take, which created a diverse line made up of 10 new titles, each separate but joined in continuity because they're all set in the world of the late-'60s cult favorite film Night of the Living Dead.
Now the company has gone one better and released collections of the first five issues of all 10 series, all gathered in two boxed sets.
Each title has a one-word title: Honor, Rise, Slab, Spring, Home, Remote, Medic, Dedication, Soul and Z-Men.
Crafted by a small army of writers (including Marvel veteran Bill Jemas) and even more artists, some of the series interconnect as we see different views of the attack of the zombies in Pennsylvania - and how that disaster affected normal people caught in the path (Rise), and how military and political forces responded (Z-Men).
The books are quite diverse, from straightforward horror (Medic) to offbeat workplace humor (Remote) to college frat hi-jinks (Slab) and even bizarre science fiction (Spring).
Taken as a whole, the series is impressive for its scope and goals. It struggles a bit with the execution - some stories are quite good, some just kind of meander oddly and some never quite get to the point.
The artwork is equally mixed - there are some striking covers that don't always relate to the books interiors, and the art ranges from very good to just OK.
But fans of horror - and zombies in particular - will no doubt be interested to see this take on the classic zombie film - the one that brought the concept to the attention of filmgoers around the world (though of course the concept of zombies was around long before the '60s).
Grade: B
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