Let me run through these a bit slower now.

First, SHAUN being sent off to the printer means the die is cast, the switch is thrown, the KISS bandmates’s blood is mixed into the ink… or something like that. Basically, it means that, barring a nuclear strike launched from the other side of Korea, the comic will be printed and shipped to stores. To get it to this point, it needed not only Universal’s approval, but Simon and Edgar’s, too. It got high marks all around—in fact, I’d sent an advance PDF copy to Patrick Gorman, he of STAR WARS IN 30 MINUTES fame, and he talked to Edgar [Wright, SHAUN’s director] about it after a screening of EPISODE III, and reported that Edgar was very complimentary there, too—so it was ready to go. One issue down.

In that same piece from April 25, I talked about this SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY book that was edited by Tom and Matt Morris in which Scott and I contributed a chapter. Well, not only did the box of comps show up at our places (nothing makes you feel more like a real writer than a box of comps showing up on your porch. Well, nothing besides a paycheck, that is), but Scott reported seeing copies of the book at Tower Records in LA. And last weekend, I checked out the paperback New Releases and there it was, sitting nonchalantly on the side of the table (displayed right next to Kevin Smith’s SILENT BOB SPEAKS book, which also mentions me in the intro, making me feel fleetingly even more important. The feeling faded quickly, of course, but not before I re-organized their New Releases table to give a bit more prominence to the PHILOSOPHY book. In fact, I encourage everyone to hit their local Barnes & Nobles and Borders and do the same. Maybe we should do a contest here where you submit a pic of yourself holding a copy of the book and win… something or other.). A very strange, but nice, feeling to see the book actually in a bookstore.

Third on my list is my post-SHAUN writing assignment. One of two, actually. Tipton and I are involved with another project, along with artist Ashley Wood and other people you comics fans, and also you horror fiction fans, have heard of. Can’t really talk much about that one yet, but give me about a month and I will. SQUIB CENTRAL’s Joshua Jabcuga will be contributing to it in another capacity, too, so it’s a nice little Poop Shoot/IDW merger.

Anyway, back to this one. It’s not exactly a big secret, but an early interview that went up about it had to be taken down due to my corporate all-father licensors not being entirely happy with me being the first one to spread certain details. But I’m writing the five-part adaptation of George Romero’s first new zombie movie in fifteen years, LAND OF THE DEAD.

In this one, the movie and the comic, it’s the same setting as his brilliant “DEAD” trilogy, only roughly 15 years later. So obviously the cast has changed, but the zombies remain the same. There’s a lot more of them this time around, which causes some problems for the ever-shrinking list of human survivors. Folks like Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Dennis Hopper star in the movie. Universal has really treated this one with the utmost security, so even though they recently moved the release date up from October to June, no one really knows much about it.

I shouldn’t say no one, since I’ve been working from two drafts of the script and, at George’s behest, Universal screened the film for me last week. However, I’m not only sworn to secrecy on it, I wouldn’t leak things anyway, since I’d like the comic to feel special and surprising for people who’ve never seen the movie. It’s got some fun stuff in there for people who have seen it, too, if I do say so myself.

The nicest part about taking on these projects myself from time to time is the ability to find the perfect artist for the job and work with someone who I’d really like to see exposed to a wider audience. First it was the amazing Zach Howard on SHAUN, and now, I’m working on this with a guy named Gabriel Rodriguez.

I know you haven’t heard of Gabe. Almost no typical comic-buyers have heard of Gabe. See, he’s been doing CSI comics for us for about three years now. In fact, outside of Ashley Wood or Ben Templesmith, he’s illustrated more IDW books than anyone, yet the guy toils in licensed-work obscurity. Which isn’t a bad thing, and he’s damned capable of nailing Grissom or anyone on that show while still offering up dynamic layouts on comics that are essentially lots of talking-head panels. But CSI fans buy CSI comics—most people who frequent comic book stores don’t. (Which is a shame, if I can editorialize for a sentence—the latest book, written by Steven Grant, is really solid, and ROAD TO PERDITION and CSI novelist Max Allan Collins has done some good’uns, too.)

So this is my bid to really give Gabe a chance to show what he can do. After 20-some issues of CSI, some pages of heads being removed by zombie-bite and/or gunshot blast are just what he’s been needing to flex a bit.

The book’s being colored by Jay Fotos, and as you can see from the first two pages (all I can show you right now), this is gonna be a really solid, and nicely creepy book no matter what I do with the scripts.

The call with George Romero and two of his LAND producers were to go over the scripts, and the nice after-effect of them setting up the aforementioned screening for me. Always good to be able to check things I wrote against the actual visuals and see how they stack up.

*NOTE: I realize this whole column smacks of a long plug, really, but that’s not my intention, to just hype IDW’s projects. I’ve tried to keep the two gigs separate, but since some of these projects are making it into the marketplace, a fact that I’m really happy about, I wanted to talk about them. Especially in a venue that doesn’t require as much structure as our editorial pages or press releases. And after sharing every other stupid story over the past three years (Amy Jo, still you haunt me!), it’d feel weird to ignore this side of my life, especially since it’s all tied to what we do at this site anyway.)

For LAND OF THE DEAD’s covers, there’s this Australian artist I’ve been wanting to find work for for a while now, too. And it just so happens that he’s a huge Romero and zombie fan, which I think shows through in his first two covers—name’s Chris Bolton, and here’s what he’s done so far:

Luckily, there's been all of this going on to distract me from the fact that there've been no advance EPISODE III screenings in San Diego...

/chris

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