Zombies Calling: snappy popcult zombie comic in the Scott Pilgrim mold

Faith Erin Hicks's Zombies Calling is a fun, fast graphic novel about Canadian university students who battle zombies on campus. The protagonist, Joss, is an incorrigible zombie movie nut who argues endlessly with her roommates about the internal consistency of zombie genre films and the rules that heroes must follow when they are confronted by the walking dead. She's also a helpless anglophile who peppers her speech with affectations like "crumbs," which annoys her roommates but is actually very sweet for the reader.

Zombies Calling fits nicely into the Scott Pilgrim mode: rich with pop-culture reference, snappy dialog, and a delightful disregard for the boundary between reality and fantasy.

Hicks has got lots going for her -- great illustration and writing style, funny dialog and likeable characters -- but what I was most impressed by was her cinematic talent for making a zombie chase-scene come alive with real tension through clever panel-layout and illustrations. I didn't expect to have my heart thumping over a funnybook about zombies, but thump it did.

Zombies Calling

• [tyger11]

  Where’s the one with the yellowy eyes?

• [automaton_be]

  In keeping with the whole anglophile thing, shouldn’t the link be to amazon.co.uk, where your shopping cart is a basket?

• [adamnvillani]

  Seriously, what’s up with the zombie fad?

• [tyger11]

  #9 – people are getting sick of vampires, and zombies are the cure.

• [Trent Hawkins]

  Yeah, and when are they going to get over that whole “listening to music” fad too?

• [PixelFish]

  Been following Faith since her first webcomic, Demonology 101. It’s awesome to see how far she’s come and even awesomer (is that a word?) to see her Boing-Boinged.

• [Duo]

  so is this a one-shot thing, or is it part of an ongoing series?

• [trippcook]

  ZOMG ZOMBIES how fresh and original!

• [Victor Bogado]

  Everyone who didn’t read demonology 101 should go and read it at http://faith.rydia.net/ , I was hooked by it and have been following faith since. too bad her online-output has been so slow lately. :-)

• [auilix]

  wait, isn’t it “Zombies Calling” not “Zombies Rising” as stated on the link?

  It looks amazing!

• [Bonnie]

  I’m a HUGE fan of this comic — which actually came out in 2007 before everyone had zombie fever. It’s got a great sense of humor, a surprize ending, and lots of great inside jokes for hardcore zombie movie fans.

• [Cory Doctorow]

  @3: Zombies Calling is correct — thanks for pointing it out

  @1: It’s a stand-alone

  @2: Get bent.

• [Anonymous]

  Also been following Faith for a while now (since Demonology) and I’m glad to see she’s gotten some publicity here. Well deserved.

• [Keneke]

  I have a friend (in Atlanta) who fakes British idioms and phrases because of this guy in England she likes. It makes me want to slap her with a Monty Python DVD.

  But a comic about someone with that trait? Sounds pretty neat, just because it’s cool to see things you can relate to.

• [Daemon]

  Ok, so now that even the characters in zombie fiction are aware of all the crappy stereotypes of zombie fiction, maybe it’s time for those rules to be tossed out of windows, along with the people who insist on them.

  I like zombies – but not the ones in 99% of all movies and video games. So boring…

• [Daemon]

  Gah, I meant crappy cliches.

• [ashground]

  Hicks is awesome. I liked her next graphic novel, The War at Elismere, even more. Shame she doesn’t get more attention — maybe some publicity on Boing Boing can change that.

• [tyger11]

  Okay, so if she’s an Anglophile, does that make the title an homage to the Clash? Cuz if so, yet another reason to check this out, and the first obvious song on the soundtrack to the inevitable movie. :)

• [jetfx]

  @Tyger11

  The whole cover is a reference to the Clash album, not just the title.

• [snakedart]

  Someone just needs to come out with a comic or movie depicting mindless masses shuffling off to consume the latest zombie entertainment, and the circle will be complete.