Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero’s…)

    (IDW, 2004)
™ and © 1978 The MKR Group, Inc.

Horror–meister Steve Niles freely adapts George Romero’s classic horror film Dawn of the Dead, and the results are mixed. Niles follows the script almost to the letter, but where Romero’s violence was brutal but not all that graphic, Niles has gone in the other direction. Penciller Chee has depicted scenes of dismemberment and disembowelment in gory detail.

While it’s true that there are fans of this sort of ultraviolence in comic books—Preacher and the original Authority were full of it—it’s not appropriate for this retelling. The in–your–face quality of this blood–and–guts depiction turns the cautionary, satirical Dawn of the Dead into a splatter movie, and in doing so, completely misses the point. That’s not to say that every comics adaptation of a movie needs to be shot–for–shot, but the added violence obscures the message.

If readers can get past the blood–drenched panels, they might find a trace of Romero’s commentary on society contained within, but they’re probably better off buying the DVD.

— Steve Horton
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April, 2004
Cover Price: $3.99
3 copies available from $7.25 		Steve Niles, George A. RomeroChee Yang Ong