Rip Your Heart Out with the Queer Western Zombie Series “Everything Dead & Dying” [Interview]
"This is definitely my most heartrending and humanist horror story I've written." -Tate Brombal
The new genre-defying queer western zombie series, Everything Dead & Dying, hits comic shops this September ; prepare to have your heart ripped to shreds and your stomach churned. Writer Tate Brombal promises “you've never read a zombie story like this.” This series is like “Yellowstone meets The Walking Dead”, with a lot of elements similar to The Last of Us, especially the episode “Long, Long Time” following the beloved achillean couple Bill and Frank.
Everything Dead & Dying is from Eisner-nominated creators Tate Brombal (Christopher Chaos, Batgirl) and Jacob Phillips (That Texas Blood, Newburn), with colors by debut colorist Pip Martin (color assistant on Newburn, That Texas Blood) and award-winning letterer Aditya Bidikar (The Department of Truth, W0rldtr33). The first issue is brilliantly executed, you really get to live in the dread of this drab world that’s now an ugly echo of something once beautiful and full of light. Published by Image Comics and produced by James Tynion IV’s production house Tiny Onion, Everything Dead & Dying further exemplifies that Tiny Onion is a pioneer in creator-owned horror comics.
The five-issue limited series is a “zombie story told through a western lens where invaders enter a rural town and a lone man is going to defend his loved ones from them...It just so happens that his loved ones are zombies.” After getting early access to the first issue, I can almost guarantee you that you’ll walk away from this story absolutely gutted (as good horror often does!) Final Order Cutoff (FOC) for issue #1 is this Monday, the 11th of August—which is perfect timing because Halloween season is swiftly approaching!
Jack Chandler is the sole survivor of the zombie apocalypse in his rural farming community, but rather than eliminate them, he has chosen to continue living alongside the undead—including the husband and adopted daughter he fought so hard to have. But when his town is discovered by outsiders, Jack suddenly becomes the one thing standing in the way of those who hope to kill his family for good.
Ahead of the debut issue hitting shelves September 3rd, I had the amazing opportunity to chat with Brombal and Phillips about all things (save the spoilers) Everything Dead & Dying, including their creative processes, and, of course, their favorite zombie stories. Here’s what they had to say!
With an intense familial element that explores death and loss through the lens of a zombie apocalypse, where did the idea for this story come from?/ What drew you to it?
TATE: This story has been marinating and rotting in my brain since 2021. It was definitely born out of those days of quarantine, of feeling like the world was ending and struggling with the amount of death and loss through that period. It all started with an image suddenly appearing in my head out of nowhere. It was this portrait of a man sitting at the edge of his bed in the dark, and he was surrounded by his undead family. I could feel the grief and guilt weighing down upon him, and I needed to know his story—so I decided to write it. I never thought I'd write a zombie story, until this one came along demanding to be told.
JACOB: Yeah, this is exactly what drew me to the book. Sure the zombie guts and gore is fun, but that’s not enough to interest me past the point of a couple of pages on its own. The thing that pulls you in this complex emotional struggle that runs through the book. You’re rooting for Jack, and you understand why he’s doing what he’s doing; you just really wish he wouldn’t do it.
TATE: I mean, do I even need to say The Walking Dead? I discovered that comic in high school and became obsessed, like everybody else. I also read World War Z around that time, and it blew my mind! Just seeing it reinvent what a zombie story could be, especially in such a humanist and real-world way. It's funny looking back and realizing how much I always loved zombie stories. It's a bit surreal that I'm now contributing to that canon, and I'm really proud of the story we're telling!
JACOB: Is this the point where I admit I’ve never read past the first volume of The Walking Dead? I’ve known Charlie for the majority of my life, so I’ve always known about it but I think I was slightly too young when it started and then it just seemed like such an impossible task after a while. I really should get around to it though, I hear it’s good…BUT I do love OTHER Zombie stories like Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days (and Years, not so much Months) Later, obviously Shaun of the Dead and I liked Paul Tremblay’s take on them in his novel Survivor Song.
What was it like bringing this unique zombie story to life? What sets it apart from other horror stories you have worked on?
TATE: This is definitely my most heartrending and humanist horror story I've written. A big part of it is humanizing the zombies, the undead loved ones. I think it's easy to get into the schlocky zombie stuff where heads explode and innards are ripped out, but we wanted to tell a story that remembered and honored that these zombies were human once. They had lives. They had dreams and ambitions and horrible habits, but then this disease took all of that away and desecrated their bodies. I love a schlocky gorefest of a zombie story, but we wanted to do a zombie story differently. That's really what sets this one apart.
JACOB: Yeah, whatever story I’m telling it’s always the characters and emotions that I’m focusing on. That’s what carries the story and gets people to care about the horrors happening around them, so that’s my number one priority. Having said that it’s great fun doing the gory horror stuff and getting to stretch muscles I’ve only really touched on in my previous works
Tate, what is it like writing horror for comics? How do you communicate anticipation and pacing through the pages of a comic?
TATE: It's not easy!! Hahaha. We don't have that beautiful, haunting score to drum up tension or sudden, disorienting screams for a good jump scare. Instead, we need to rely on pacing, building tension, and delivering haunting visuals that surprise, disturb, and burrow deep into a reader's brain. Since we don't have audio to rely upon, comics demand more from the reader to engage with the work. It gets our imaginations spinning. We fill in the gaps, much like in prose novels where our imaginations do so much heavy lifting. If a comic can engage that imagination and really get you deep into its pacing and tone...you don't need an audio track for jump scares. The reader will do all the work with the help of some amazing visuals. That's what makes the comics medium so special and unique for horror stories.
Jacob, from jump scares to blood and guts, what is it like bringing horror to life through the visual medium of comic books?
JACOB: It’s good fun! It’s great to be able to crack out the ink and splatter it across the page for an explosive, bloody splash page, but the real challenge comes in building that tension Tate spoke of—letting it creep up through the pages so that when the action comes, it works and feels earned.
Without spoiling anything, what are you most excited for readers to see or experience when reading Everything Dead & Dying #1?
TATE: I don't know if it's very nice to say this but...heartbreak? I'm excited for readers to love zombie characters more than ever before.
JACOB: We just like to make people sad.
What has been your favorite part about working on this comic? Maybe a favorite character or issue?
TATE: Working with Jacob, for sure. We've been friends for a while now and to finally be telling a story together is just awesome. He's really made this comic better than I ever thought it could be! Otherwise, I will always love our zombie cow. ♥️
JACOB: I wish I could say the same, Tate…
What has it been like working with this incredible creative team to bring Everything Dead & Dying to life?
TATE: It's been a DREAM! Jake is awesome, obvs, but also PIP MARTIN!!!! This is her first ever comic that she has colored, and that doesn't even make sense to me. She is KILLING it in every conceivable way. Her colors are constantly taking my breath away. And then, of course, my good friend Aditya Bidikar who has been with me since my first ever comic Barbalien: Red Planet. I trust him more than anyone with my words, and the way he matches the art and tone of every project he works on is what truly makes him the best letterer working in the industry today.
JACOB: Yeah, despite what I literally just said, it’s been an absolute dream working with my buddy Tate and it’s been amazing seeing Pip grow into this book and a colourist in her own right after being my color assistant for years now. Aditya has absolutely smashed it on the letters, this is the first book where I’ve not lettered it myself and suddenly I’m starting to question why it’s taken me so long to let somebody that knows what they're doing do it.
And finally, do you have any other projects you’re working on that you'd like people to check out?
TATE: If you're a fan of horror, definitely check out my other horror project Behold, Behemoth which came out from Boom! Studios a couple years ago now. I also have a monster comic called The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos which recently launched a new miniseries—so you can pick up the first two volumes of that then grab the new series subtitled Children of the Night! I never thought I'd be a horror writer and now it's apparently the one genre I can't stop writing!!! Hahaha.
JACOB: Yeah, my series with Chris Condon, That Texas Blood and spin-off story The Enfield Gang Massacre, which are character driven westerns with smatterings of horror throughout. So, if you like this, there’s a good chance you’ll like that too. The other project I’m working on at the moment is TOP SECRET so can’t say much on that but keep an eye out for an announcement coming soon on that one
From Image Comics and Tiny Onion, Everything Dead & Dying Final Order Cutoffs (FOCs) this Monday, August 11th with the first issue set to release on September 3rd. Stay up to date with all of Tiny Onion’s titles by following them on socials @ReadTinyOnion, and subscribing to their newsletter on Substack: The Empire of the Tiny Onion. Image Comics can also be found on all major social media platforms under @ImageComics. And follow me, @SamiDeMonster, on Instagram and Tiktok and make sure to subscribe to my The DeMonster!