The shambling corpse of an undead zombie stranger proves to be an easy kill. We can eliminate it with extreme prejudice without so much as an afterthought. But what drives us to kill another, when we’ll get much further ahead by working together.

Fighting the undead horde takes a group of people united around a common goal. Most often this goal is survival, but it doesn’t have to be. Despite this goal, a common truth remains: one cannot survive in isolation. Comics live by these very same tenants. If they are to survive they need a team driven by a common goal.

Assembling the right team takes time and trust. It requires a concrete plan and people who are committed to the long-term end goal. Luckily, Double Take’s Ultimate Night of the Living Dead universe isn’t populated by a bunch of brainless walkers, but rather, a multitude of incredibly driven people.

However, it takes time to amass the right team. My book “Race” takes place during the titular night of the living dead. Zombies are everywhere but they’re far from the biggest lurking in the night. I wish I could tell you more, but all will be revealed in due time.

Much like any band of survivors a comic needs a good leader. That leader on “Race” happens to be the awesomely cool Robert Meyers. (Word is he makes a mean salsa) He was previously the Operations Coordinator at Valiant Entertainment, and now he serves as a source of wisdom and guidance as we navigate this brand new world of zombies. He’s been part of every step of the process and luckily had the patience to teach me “how to survive.”

Those of you who watch The Walking Dead will remember Rick’s three questions for new additions to the group. How many walkers have you killed? How many people have you killed? And Why? Well, to survive we need to follow a similar set of guidelines, under the fearless editor.

As the leader Robert’s been auditioning new members of our team. See, only one artist can bring “Race” to life in the right way. Many have read the script, a handful have drawn some sample scenes but at the end of the day the book can only have one artist. Double Take works with a unique auditioning process for their titles. It’s a competition of sorts, but moreover it’s treated like a job interview. The best person gets the job.

Young Heller’s early layout’s for “Race” #1.

We blocked out a specific scene from the beginning of the book and shared that with artists who were interested. We gave the brief:

Stop-action, sets of 3 camera stays low to the ground, moves closer until it is a few feet back and to the right of her heels

And we got a lot of results. Each artist’s take was rather different in style from the last. The right ideals came from Double Take artist Young Heller. Not only did he capture the tone we were looking for on the series, but he managed to fit into the world and perfectly capture the tone of desperation in our opening scene.

More of Young Heller’s early layout’s for “Race” #1.

Once we asked the right questions we had found our artist. But once you have the right team, you need to start facing the real challenges of working together. That’s for Monday…

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This Zomblog will run every Monday and Friday until I run out of things to say about zombies. 

Until then check out Double Take’s blog – Double Take Universe to keep up to date on the incredible comics that will be coming your way in September. And their Kickstarter Just got FUNDED.

AND – We’ve got the full issue preview of Z-Men #1 – HERE.