Last year, Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror NFT collectible platform EverScapes launched on the eco-friendly digital marketplace Artefy. In addition to a Legendary Monsters collection, they also cracked open a loot crate set filled with NFTs inspired by George C. Romero’s The Rise.

A comic book series prologue to his father George A. Romero’s iconic horror film Night of the Living Dead, The Rise is currently being published as a series in the famed illustrated fantasy, sci-fi, and horror Heavy Metal Magazine, which comes out once a month.

Below, Romero expands upon this exciting project, highlighting how the story itself connects to his father’s iconic franchise, the ways in which his legacy lives on, working with artist Diego Yapur, and why NFTs are bringing his animation to life beyond the ink.

What led you to create The Rise comic series with Heavy Metal?

The best answer I can give to this is that it was Matthew Medney. I had been working to launch The Rise for just around a decade when Matt and I began speaking about the project. We were having a video meeting about something completely unrelated, and he saw some artwork in the background created for The Rise, so that led to a discussion about it. It only took a minute or two before I realized that his passion for hearing about it and my passion for talking about it aligned perfectly and the marriage of The Rise and Heavy Metal just made all the sense.

My original vision for The Rise, a decade-plus ago, was to launch it as a comic before moving into other formats. But, coming from a filmmaking background, it was not a difficult road to develop it as a feature, a series, and a handful of other formats that just led away from comics as a launchpad. The symbiosis of The Rise, Heavy Metal, and my vision for the future all combined to bring me full circle back to my original thoughts. And that’s when Matthew, Tommy Coriale, and I all collectively hit the gas. The Rise has been hammer down ever since!

The Rise Cover Hi-Res

How does The Rise delve into the realm of zombies and how does it connect into the world of Night of the Living Dead?

The Rise is not an official prequel to my father’s original film, but rather my personal unique take on a period prior to my father’s Night of the Living Dead. I worked for years to develop it into something that not only my father loved as a project, but also as something that I hope fans of the zombie genre as a whole will view as coming from the right place.
The Rise speaks to the creatures and their origin within an alternate version of history. But, it is also as much for the true fans of my father’s original work as it is for hardcore fans of zombies, in general. While we are working hard to develop more fleshed-out elements of The Rise, I think the best thing I can tell fellow fans is just to check it out. I hope it resonates as loudly among fans everywhere as it did, and does, in my heart and in my spirit.

How has your father’s work inspired you when crafting this tale?

I don’t think there’s a zombie creator in the world who hasn’t been inspired by my father’s work. What he did more than fifty years ago not only resonated deeply with fans, it created a playing field in which so many thousands of artists from filmmakers to poets to authors to musicians, too many to list, could use to explore and refine their craft. I think the biggest separator for me, personally, is the fact that he was my dad and that I carry his, and the family name. That’s a responsibility that I take seriously when it comes to this project.

How did you choose the time period to set this in and how do you use real history as part of the story?

I have always been a history buff. I’ve always used it as a launchpad for a lot of projects I’ve written or developed. When it came to developing The Rise, the first thing I thought about was the era during which my father unleashed his ghouls on the world. From there, I simply looked at the times leading up to the end of the sixties and it wasn’t hard to see that the entire decade was a perfect fit for the story. I did look at other time periods, though. At one point, I was developing a version that took place in the 1300-1400s. While I still have that content ready to go and developed, I really felt like this was the ideal place to begin. There have been so many derivatives and zombie creations from big studio projects to thousands of backyard films, it felt like going back that far to start was simply scaling too fast.

The thing that made my dad’s ghouls resonate so loudly with people who would become lifelong fans was the utter relatability. A zombie could have been your aunt five minutes ago. Many have explored this over the years, but few have come close to nailing that as well as he did fifty-plus years ago. There are a ton of similarities to the sixties compared to today, which makes the story personally relatable to audiences on a group and individual level. The time period for this story just made sense.

What was it like to work with artist Diego Yapur on this?

Diego is a monster. Matt and I spoke about artists early on and Diego was at the top of our list. His ability to grab emotion from a script, personalize it, and create these moments on the page spoke volumes to me, even from the very first character sketches I saw based on two-sentence descriptions of the characters. As the illustrator for The Rise, Diego is that guy we picked and never looked back! The shorthand he and I have developed through telling this tale has streamlined the entire process in ways I didn’t know possible coming from a filmmaking background.

When you write a movie or direct a movie, the process is one thing. It’s really designed to speak to the crew that will be there during production and post-production. That’s why there are so many versions of a film script. As a director, you have to view the film as though it’s on this long, winding road and you have to think about every intersection and off-ramp ahead of you as you make every decision there is to make throughout the process.

Working with Diego and developing the rapport we have worked hard to grow has been eye-opening. While I’m aware that the finished project is going out to the masses, the scripts themselves are really just written specifically for him. Getting to know what resonates with him and how he interprets every page of a script has been one of the most creatively freeing experiences of my career.

What’s it like to see your characters and creations come to life through Everscapes NFTs?

While I’m dating myself with this answer, I have to say that we are in a tremendously exciting time. I was around and working when Web 1 hit and when Web 2 took the world by storm. It was easy to see how the right investments, backing, and staff could turn the advancements into big business.

Today, we are on the front of the massive wave that is Web 3, with NFTs being a huge part of that. I think, for anyone who bore witness to Web 2, the coolest part about the NFT market is that it is creating a massive community for creatives and artists that is unprecedented in a world where a creative’s intellectual property is not only among their strongest assets, but is also one of their most delicate and vulnerable assets in their lives. I’m excited to see how the fandom reacts to The Rise NFTs and I just absolutely cannot wait to see where Web 3 takes The Rise.

For those new to NFTs, EverScapes makes the process simple and easy; account holders can buy collectibles with cryptocurrency, credit card, or PayPal. Fans looking to become early account holders can visit artefy.io/everscapes to join now.