It is my sad duty to inform you that the father of the modern zombie has passed away at the far too young age of 77 years old. George A. Romero, the man who gave us ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ushered in the entire zombie genre is no longer among the land of the living. Unfortunately, the man behind the undead lost a “…brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer” according to his producing partner Peter Grunwald in a quote to LA Times. It was reported that “Romero died while listening to the score of one his favorite films, 1952’s “The Quiet Man,†with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher Romero, and daughter, Tina Romero, at his side, the family said.”
Obviously with this being a zombie-centric site we don’t even need to go into ‘The Crazies’, ‘Martin’ or any of his other zombie work. Everyone who reads this site knows of George. Romero’s work made the mold (which had been broken a few times at this point but always circles back to Romero’s shambling ghouls.) I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to say here. Without Romero this site and our mutual love of this subgenre of horror would never have been born.
With ‘Dawn of the Dead’, ‘Day of the Dead’, ‘Land of the Dead’, ‘Diary of the Dead’, and ‘Survival of the Dead’ all under his belt that alone would have been enough to cement himself in our hearts. Yet, he also was responsible for multiple zombie comics including Marvel’s ‘Empire of the Dead’ which at one point was tapped to be produced into an ongoing television series though it is unclear if that will now see the light of day.
No matter what you think of his work, it is because of it that we have anything zombie related, including that certain little ‘The Walking Dead’ series which a few of you have enjoyed.
RIP Romero. We’ll miss you and your work.
