ZombieWorld: Winter's Dregs and Other Stories

September 15, 2005
Fingerman and company's collection rounds up all the short-run comic " Zombie World" except " Champion of the Worms" (1997), a second edition of which is due soon. Fingerman richly deserves shared top billing with artist Tommy Lee Edwards for the long title story, in which pods of murderously aggressive rats kill people who subsequently arise and behave likewise. A homeless 'Nam vet and a ruined baby-wear store owner are the only major characters left at the end of an exhilaratingly horrific romp that Edwards draws to look like a scuffed Batman movie and that Fingerman accents with an outrageous satiric jab at a recent, controversial mayor of New York. The book's other long piece, "Tree of Death," continues the characters of " Champion of the Worms" but undercuts its apocalyptic story with jokey, Daliesque artwork--all virtuosic enough, to be sure--by J. Deadstock. Of the two short stories, Kelley Jones' "Eat Your Heart Out" exuberantly echoes the style of premier horror comic " Tales from the Crypt," and Gordon Rennie and Gary Erskine's "Home for the Holidays" stands comfort and joy firmly on end. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)