Stories that started when the dead began to rise come to the end of their first arcs this Wednesday with Double Take's release of Night of the Living Dead: Revival's #5 issues, but it's only the dawn of a new beginning for many of the characters readers have fondly followed since last fall. To get an idea of what to expect in the #5 issues and beyond, we caught up with Sr. Story Editor and writer Michael Coast, who discussed the future for Evans County's resilient residents.
Thanks for once again taking the time to answer some questions for us, Michael, and kudos to you and the creative crew for a stellar round of #5 issues in the Night of the Living Dead: Revival universe. These fifth issues mark the end of the initial story arcs across all ten series. How did you decide where to leave off each story and the overall intertwined plot as a whole?
Michael Coast: Thanks once again for having me. And thank you for using the word “stellar” in relation to this latest round of Double Take releases.
For many of the series we had a pretty good idea where they were going to finish up from the beginning. For others, we thought we knew where they’d end up, but we found during the creative process that another path would be best. Some of those changes in direction were made as late as the fifth issue itself.
As far as the overall plot, we always knew that we wanted to use the original concept as a springboard to a much wider universe. So in many ways the fifth issues were designed from the beginning to steer each series toward its more longterm trajectory.
The writers and artists behind NOTLD: Revival have always excelled at taking the series in unexpected directions, and with its focus on the incredible new abilities of George’s workers, Dedication #5 is no exception. Are you consciously taking a more superhero-type approach to those characters?
Michael Coast: That’s a perfect example of a fifth issue representing the longterm trajectory of the series. While there is still story to be told in this particular 1966 setting, the future of Dedication feels a lot more like this fifth issue than the first issue. Part of that comes in the form of superpowers. We’d had it in mind for quite some time that we wanted to get to the point of having “service industry superheroes.” It just took a little longer to work out the details of who got what powers.
The most important thing, however, was to give our readers reasons to care about these characters before they acquired superpowers. So while we’ve turbocharged many of these characters to a degree, we still want them to be grounded—realistic personalities working within a realistic environment. I think many of our readers (not to mention our creators) can relate to them as characters because of this.
There have been some surprising alien reveals in these latest issues. What has it been like to keep track of the physical and mental states of your sprawling Evans County cast down this home stretch?
Michael Coast: In our office we have a wall dedicated to the where and when of every major character across the ten series. So that covers at least the physical states.
The mental is, of course, a bit more slippery. Characters, if they’re well-crafted, will eventually take on a life of their own. If you try to make all the decisions for them, the stories will suffer. So in building the storylines, especially when we got to the fourth and fifth issues, we had to give ourselves enough timeline leeway to let the characters go where they should go and not necessarily where we originally wanted them to go.
Lisa’s encounter with Kris Kringle at the end of Home #5 was an early holiday gift for readers. When did you come up with the idea of ending the Fosters’ first story arc on a festive note, and can we expect further profanity from Lisa down the line?
Michael Coast: That’s one of those moments that came about during the scripting process. The ending as originally written didn’t feel quite right, so we tried out the coda with Kris Kringle. Lisa is at her best in seemingly wholesome situations. What could be more wholesome than that?
We’re working on bringing back Lisa and the entire Foster family for a continuing series in the near future. I’m pretty excited with how that’s turning out so far.
In the past, we’ve talked about the horror elements of NOTLD: Revival, but there is a lot of great sci-fi at work within these pages, too. What are some of your sci-fi influences that inspire you while writing this series?
Michael Coast: There are a lot of Kurt Vonnegut fans among our creators, so that’s probably our biggest group sci-fi influence. I still remember my first experience with Vonnegut. I picked up a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five off the family book shelf at what was probably too young an age. And I don’t think that I was aware that it was science fiction when I decided to read it. Maybe I just liked the title. Even after reading it, for a while I don’t think I was ever quite aware of just how “sci-fi” it was going to get. Going in cold like that, having the surprise of all the strange places that this book would go—I don’t want to say that it made for a “better” reading experience. It’s a great book either way. What it did was give me this feeling of discovery. This was no ordinary book. And it sure wasn’t what I was used to expecting from science fiction.
We’ve tried to capture at least a little bit of that feeling in these series. You think you’re reading books that are firmly in the horror genre, but it turns out that the series is growing into something completely different than what you may have expected.
Ben has been living a lethal Groundhog Day-like life in your Soul series, but in issue #5 he forms an unexpected alliance that has propelled the story into a VERY intriguing direction. As crazy as things have been in Evans County, Ben’s experiences might take the cake for being the most bizarre and thought-provoking. What can you tease about Ben’s adventure moving forward?
Michael Coast: Well, Ben is definitely not out of the woods yet. Just because he seems to have escaped one dangerous situation doesn’t mean that he won’t quickly run into another. As readers have seen in the original film and in Soul, Ben’s plans rarely turn out the way that he expects them to.
The scientific and medical scenes in both the Slab and Medic storylines seem very well-researched and genuine. When you were writing these series, did you learn a lot about what doctors and nurses endure during emergencies?
Michael Coast: It was definitely a learning experience for all involved. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a very knowledgeable medical consultant in Dr. Harry Haramis, who has guided us through the intricacies of a hospital emergency room. I should also take a moment to praise Stan Chou, the primary layout artist on this series and several others, for taking the time to learn the finer points of the surgeries and medical procedures portrayed in the past few issues of these series. Those two should get the lion’s share of the credit for the authenticity. Bill Jemas, our General Manager and no slouch himself in the science department, holds us to a very high standard on that front, and the creative team has stepped up to the challenge.
Dr. Grimes may be Earth’s only ticket back to normalcy, but his extremely practical nature makes him come across as a cold man at times, especially around his daughters, Carol and Jane. Do you think he loves them deep down and is driven to save them, or is that emotional part of him already dead?
Michael Coast: I think that’s one of those questions that should be left up to the readers to decide (at least at this stage). We’ve tried to plant clues for how Grimes feels toward his family since the first issue of Slab. A more definitive answer may emerge in future issues, but for now we’re happy to retain a degree of ambiguity.
Those infected with the worms have said, “You’ll like the new us.” Do the infected see themselves as the next stage in human evolution, or are they simply hungry for their next meal (or both!)?
Michael Coast: These fifth issues show that the so-called “infected” view themselves as being, at the very least, different than normal humans. We’ve also set up different classes. So, for example, someone who died first and came back may have very different thoughts on the "Next Stage of Human Evolution" versus "Hungry for Their Next Meal" debate than someone who became infected but did not die first.
Did you initially have different endings in mind for any of these series?
Michael Coast: Sure. And in some cases they were very different. But as I said earlier, sometimes you have to give your characters leeway in order to have a richer, fuller story. Other cases where the endings weren’t what we initially expected had to do more with slowing things down and living in the universe we built instead of trying to rush to finish the stories and move on to something else in five issues as originally planned.
As the Sr. Story Editor, looking back at the first fifty issues of NOTLD: Revival, what has surprised or delighted you the most during the creation of this world?
Michael Coast: Well, I think it’s just that: we managed to create a world. The people who are reading these series, they aren’t just reading one or two. They’re binge-reading the whole set of ten.
We had expected to be able to have overlapping characters and settings and all the other features of a shared universe. And we expected it to give a small bonus to anyone who was reading more than one series. But I think it’s fair to say that it’s greatly exceeded that. A reader may not enjoy every one of these fifty issues. But that reader can read those issues and feel immersed in this world right alongside the characters.
While the first story arcs have come to a close in these #5 issues, it feels like the dawn of a new beginning for many of these characters. What can you tell us about the next step for these stories? Can we expect to see #6 issues anytime soon, or perhaps the return of these characters in a new comic book series?
Michael Coast: You can expect all of these characters to return at one point or another. Some will be featured characters in our next set of series, some will shift to supporting roles in other series for the time being, and others will be heard from again but not for a little longer than the others.
Our plan right now is to do new Issue #1s to kick off new story arcs. Some will pick up right where one of the original series left off, while others will either feature a jump in time or completely new characters. So be on the lookout for those later this year.
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In case you missed it, check out the covers for the Night of the Living Dead: Revival #5 issues, and to learn more more about Double Take’s Night of the Living Dead: Revival, visit:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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