Director George A. Romero grew up on classic movie monsters — and he says he never dreamed he'd be responsible for creating the modern zombie that now lurks alongside those monsters. "I never expected it. I really didn't," he tells NPR's Arun Rath. "... All I did was I took them out of 'exotica' and I made them the neighbors ... I thought there's nothing scarier than the neighbors!"
Zombies are everywhere in Hollywood — there's a new batch of films every year, and AMC's The Walking Dead continues to kill it in the ratings. All these zombies can be traced back to Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The 1968 movie wasn't just a low-budget, black-and-white film about corpses that came back to life to feed on people — it was also a commentary on the racial and social tensions of 1968 America.
Romero went on to direct another five films in the zombie canon — most recently 2009's The Survival of the Dead. Romero has chosen to tell his latest zombie tale — which takes place in New York City — in the form of a comic book. The Empire of the Dead is being published by Marvel, and the first five installments are being published as a book.