Last week I got to see Max Brooks at Midtown Comics, where he was signing his new comic Extinction Parade.  The Extinction Parade is about Vampires living in our world while a zombie outbreak occurs.  This isn’t the first time this subject matter has been tackled, but I’m very interested in seeing Max Brooks take on it.  So far the first book seems pretty solid, and whet my appetite for the next issue.  Here’s a description from Avatar Press.

Vampires have always been the elite of the undead.  These apex predators have never feared foe or lack of food…until now.  By remaining too out of touch with the modern world they have failed to notice the subdead zombie race turning the tide over the human population.  Now, perhaps too late, the vampires must stop the encroaching shambling dead or find themselves starved out of existence.

While at the signing several fans, including myself, asked different questions and took pictures, which Max was more than gracious enough to do.  One of the questions asked was why he wrote  The Zombie Survival Guide before he wrote World War Z because it seemed backwards.  Max responded “You assume that the creative excitement came first.  The fear came first.  The fear of zombies is way older than my books.  Zombies goes back to like 1985 at 12 years old.  So zombie survival guide had been percolating for a long time.”

Another question involved the World War Z movie directly.  Someone asked what he basically thought of the film and it being different, and he responded (I’m paraphrasing on this one) that he was happy with the movie.  He’s kind of glad it’s different because it takes the responsibility off of his shoulders.  It’s also nice not to have to nitpick a character and point out inaccuracies between his book and the film, had the film been closer to his original work..

I asked a few of my own questions which you can see in the video below.  Max Brooks often shows up at conventions.  If you get a chance, you owe it to yourself to see him.  He’ll definitely have you laughing.