Q&A: Talking Horror, Westerns, and Zombies with EVERYTHING DEAD & DYING’s Tate Brombal and Jacob Phillips

2025/07/02 15:49:39 +00:00 | Jonathan James

Tate Brombal (Batgirl, Black Hammer, House of Slaughter) and Jacob Phillips (That Texas Blood, Enfield Gang Massacre, Newburn) have teamed up for Everything Dead & Dying, a 5-issue comic book miniseries that kicks off this September from Image Comics in collaboration with Tiny Onion. Featuring colors by Pip Martin and letters from Aditya Bidikar.

"Everything Dead & Dying follows Jack Chandler, the sole survivor of the zombie apocalypse hunkered down in his rural farming community. But rather than eliminate them, Jack has chosen to continue living alongside the undead—including the husband and adopted daughter he fought so hard to have. But when his town is discovered by outsiders, Jack suddenly becomes the one thing standing in the way of those who hope to kill his family for good."

It's not easy to come up with a new spin on a zombie tale, but the synopsis alone had me so hooked that I immediately sent over questions to Tate and Jacob for our latest Q&A. They talk about their collaboration, inspirations, and what to expect from this horror miniseries. We also have preview pages that you can read right now!

Tate, I know this is an idea that you've been cooking up since 2020. Can you talk about the inspiration behind the story and how it found a home with Image and Tiny Onion?

Tate: This particular story has been gestating, marinating, and rotting in my brain for a long, long time. I remember it first began with an image that came out of nowhere and then never left—this image of an aged, wearied man sitting at the edge of his bed surrounded by his undead family, and they weren’t attacking him but were living with him, and he was burdened with such grief. It was this really perverse, fascinating, tragic portrait of a man and a family that I needed to explore. Why was he still living with his dead? What did his life look like amongst them? The rest of his story came along, as I continued to venture down that path and ask myself those questions. At the time, during the first year of quarantine, there was so much fear and death itself seemed so close. I wanted to tell this story that dug into all those dark, complicated emotions, and I knew I couldn’t mess it up. That’s why I waited until I knew I was ready to tell this story and until I had the perfect partners and publisher to do so.

Jacob Phillips and I have been good friends for a few years now, and I obviously adore his work. When the idea for him to draw this story came up, it just made so much sense. His art perfectly suits this grounded, humanist take on zombies. He draws killer action scenes. And he loves drawing sad, angry men monologuing in dark rooms at the end of the world. He’s perfect! Then Tiny Onion came along, and I’ve been working with James Tynion IV and Eric Harburn for years now too, so when they showed interest in the project, I knew this was a team that I could wholeheartedly trust. They connected Jake and I with Image, which was always our dream publisher for this story, and there you have it!

Jacob, what were your thoughts when Tate first came to you with this? Can you talk about developing the look for these characters and the visuals for this world?

Jacob: I thought “oh brother! This guy?!”—but then when Tate told me the idea, I thought it was so good it would be worth working with him! It was great to dive into this world which felt so different to anything I had done before. I had a good time laying out the town and farm and making floor plans for the house, laying everything out so I could make it consistent throughout and working with a digital model builder to create sets for each room in the house, in an attempt to make it as believable and lived in as I could manage. The image of this family is such a strong visual that it felt as if the work on the characters was already done—there was a way they had to look, and that’s the way I drew them. I distilled the characters down to the way they look, and the clothes that they wear.

For our readers who are just learning about this, what can you tell us about Jack Chandler and the struggles he faces throughout this series?

Tate: Jack Chandler is a man who has fought tooth and nail for every single inch of his life, then right when he has his family and his perfect home…the zombie apocalypse hits and takes it all away from him. Except for one thing: his family is there, moving around on the muscle memory of their last days alive. His home and his town and all of his neighbors are still there…so what does he do? He refuses to let them go and, instead, becomes their caretaker. He’s a farmer. He knows how to feed the land, how to tend to his herd, so he does exactly that. He can’t let his dead rest—which is very messed up! And all of this only becomes more complicated when a group of human survivors walk into town looking to clear it of the dead so they can take the town for themselves. But Jack has faced struggles all his life. What’s a few humans in the way of everyone he loves?

What can you tell us about the living dead of this world? How do they compare or contrast with what many people are used to from Night of the Living Dead or The Walking Dead? Do they follow the Romero rules for zombies?

Tate: I don’t want to spoil too much, but they do operate pretty closely to traditional zombie rules. The key difference with these zombies is that they move around on the muscle memory of their last days alive, especially if they are kept fed and are undisturbed. And if you keep them well-fed, they’ll be satisfied and won’t need to run about scavenging for the flesh they crave.

Jacob: Visually, they are also pretty in line with the traditional zombie, but as Tate said, rather than running after you in hoards they’re just trying to get to the pharmacy to pick up their prescription from 10 years ago.

Can you two talk about your creative process? I love how stories and characters will evolve and change when a writer and artist start working through the story. Were there any major changes or evolutions based on your collaboration?

Tate: Definitely! The biggest surprise for me during the process has been seeing the smaller characters find new life through Jake’s interpretation. Side characters who weren’t meant to get quite so much page space are suddenly finding entire issues built around them, and I love those discoveries when writing. Another big thing is how much humanity Jake brings to the zombie characters. I’ve definitely adjusted my approach to really lean into that humanity more and more.

Jacob: For me, it was about figuring out the visual language for the book. We move around quite a lot in time, and in and out of reality, and it was a fun challenge to figure out how to convey that subtly but clearly to the reader. This is also the first time that I’ve done a book that is colored by somebody else—Pip Martin is coloring this book, so it was interesting to see how she approached things. I’m used to having an idea of how it will look when I color it, so it was exciting to have surprises coming in when she sent the pages back.

As much as it's a zombie story, I really started thinking about some of the great westerns when thinking about this world and where the story goes. What are some of your favorite westerns and some that may have served as an inspiration when developing this story?

Tate: I mean, I love Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I don’t know if that quite matches this book tonally, haha. I love that idea, though, of those two men who refuse to let go of their way of life right until its tragic end. I grew up on all the John Wayne films too because my father just adores them. It’s the iconic simplicity of it all that attracts me. It’s the perfect stage for tales of morality and mortality like this.

Jacob: Yeah, Butch Cassidy is a good’n. I love the Dollars Trilogy, True Grit, Tombstone, Bone Tomahawk, and No Country for Old Men. And outside of movies, I love novels Lonesome Dove, Blood Meridian, The Sisters Brothers, Whiskey When We’re Dry—all that good stuff.

Q: And, of course, I have to ask... what are some of your favorite zombie stories in any medium?

Tate: I mean, I remember reading World War Z way too young and it absolutely blew me away. And I know it’s everyone’s answers these days, but The Last of Us game was life-altering for me in high school. It was, and still is, one of the most powerful storytelling experiences I’ve been through.

Jacob: Well, as a Brit, and also because it’s the best one, I HAVE to say Shaun of The Dead. But also, I just watched 28 Years Later and that’s a great film.

Being a zombie story, can you tease some of the horrors that await our readers over the course of the series' five issues?

Tate: Zombie cows!!!

Jacob: Zombie chickens!!!

Editor's Note: And even though it wasn't part of our Q&A, this was a quote from Jacob Phillips in the original series announcement that I just had to share:

Jacob: "A BITING tale full of BRAINS and GUTS. We’ve poured BLOOD, sweat and tears into this comic that will leave you HUNGRY for more. But seriously. It’s been an absolute joy to build and inhabit this world of the undead with Tate, Pip and Aditya. We cannot wait for you to experience this story in all its GORY."

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Everything Dead & Dying #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, September 3rd and you can read our preview pages below! Variant covers include: