Both J. Deadstock and I have real human skulls as decorations in our homes. While this is probably the most interesting thing we have in common, it's not the only one. Most of the other similarities concern bad habits which I'm unable to mention in a write-up intended for the backs of Star Wars and Buffy The Vampire Slayer comics. Moral lapses aside, we've also both spent the last year thinking about zombies. Maybe it's been longer for either of us, but these last twelve months our thoughts have been in sync on the subject, focusing on gore-dripping ghouls limping through the streets of London, doused in green rain and mumbling (those of them who still have tongues and jaws intact) the name of Azzul Gotha. Gotha's the 42,000-year-old necromancer, legless and one-armed, who rides a chariot drawn by dessicated horses through the streets of London, looking for his young virgin queen. Okay, maybe "virgin" is a stretch, though Rebecca Dean is the most innocent and virtuous of our characters. Gotha's summoned a corpse-puking worm, the hundred-foot-long Crom Cruach, to help him carve a city-sized Tree of Death beneath London. These tunnels complete a spell he started during the original zombie plague, before polar icecaps swallowed the first Age of Man. The spell also includes the summoning of Namraath the Clown God, he of the flip-top head and crustaceous nether regions. You see why I had to begin this paragraph with a human-skull collection?

I had asked Pat Mills about doing something for ZombieWorld after we finished a Mask/Marshal Law crossover, and he suggested Deadstock. Working with these two has mostly been a pleasure. Pat's someone I've admired as long as I've been reading comics. For a mix of action and humor there's no one better. This, combined with his knowledge (apparently first-hand) of the occult, gives ZombieWorld all the authority and sophistication that readers look for in horror comics, with the excitement and charm seldom found outside of Hellboy and Preacher.

J. Deadstock, on the other hand, can be a bit of a challenge. First off, Deadstock's not his real name, and I can't remember what his reason for anonymity is. It probably didn't make sense at the time he told me. He's more than once threatened my coworkers, though he's been very nice to me. He's prone to fits of screaming, but he's genuinely appreciative of the respect everyone at Dark Horse has shown his work. When he first saw Dave Stewart's coloring on the pinup of Namraath, he called me raving about it. "It's stellar, absolutely perfect. Dave's just sort of intuitively grasped what the geezer's all about." It's tough quoting Deadstock without all the cursing, but you know . . . the Star Wars and Buffy thing. Point is, the artwork's so good I don't mind jeopardizing the safety of everyone I work with.

Mills and Deadstock's story has the high-falutin' premise of the Hebrew Qabalah at its base. Central to the Qabalah is the Tree of Life, which Pat's inverted for this little comic-book adventure as the Tree of Death. The disaster which began in Mike Mignola and Pat McEown's ZombieWorld: Champion of the Worms continues here in ZombieWorld: The Tree of Death. Written by Pat Mills of long-standing Marshal Law fame, drawn by Mister Deadstock, and colored by Dave Stewart (who colors Hellboy and owns no human skulls--even his own is rented) this ZombieWorld is going to be the most horrific comic of the year, so get ready for the apocalypse.

Scott Allie
editor