7 Days of Halloween Review: Day 3

Title:	Dawn of the Dead
Contributors:	George A. Romero Steve Niles Chee Yang Ong
Publisher:	IDW
Issue #:	1-4
Year:	2004
Pages:	32 Pages
Age Rating:	16+ (Violence, Gore, Adult Themes)
Story Grade:	C
Art Grade:	B

Dawn of the Dead by George Romero and Steve Nile is a compressed retelling of the exact story in the movie, almost like the CliffsNotes version of the movie. It's a fun read, but if you are looking for something new, this is not the place to do it.

This four issue mini series was a little bit of a disappointment in that Romero and Niles did nothing new. All of the kills are the same as they are in the movie, all of the dialog is the same as in the movie, all of the scenes are the same as the movie, just compressed.

I'm not saying the story isn't good. The original Dawn of the Dead, with it's condemnation of modern consumerism and gray skinned zombies thanks to magical make up effects of Tom Savini, is one of the fan favorites as movies go. So the story is solid, but it seems that anytime a movie is turned into a book, the writers try to tell the same story as the movie, but publishers, in this case IDW, won't even give the story a full 6 issue mini series to do it in. It's unfortunate.

The artwork is great. You can definitely see a Malaysian influence in Chee's style here and it works well. Chee loves exaggerating the gore quite a bit in the panels and does so liberally while using very earthy, neutral colors in the background and set pieces.

All in all I grade this book a C+. The compressed nature of the story is a shame, but the story itself is worthy of the being told. And the artwork is below par (in golf-speak that means better than average and that is how I mean it as well).

Until next time... Remember dead is dead baby. Dead is dead... unless hell is full.