Chances are you didn’t read Chris Roberson and Mike Allred’s
pop-horror Vertigo comic iZombie,
as it was canceled after only 28 issues. It’s a shame, because it was a great,
fun, and a genuinely fresh take on horror tropes. But you might get another
chance, as The CW is putting an iZombie show into development, to be written
by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas and VM movie co-writer Diane Ruggiero
Let me tell you two things. 1) iZombie was made to be a Rob Thomas show, and vice
versa. It’s got a strong female protagonist in Gwen, a zombie who must
occasionally eat brains once a month to keep from becoming a mindless monster.
This has the side effect of giving her the deceased’s memories — which often
means she has to complete any unfinished business the victim left behind, like
solve their murder. 2) I’m sure the title puts a lot of you off, but in the
comic, at least, it’s not some kind of horrible joke about the ubiquity of
zombies and Apple products in today’s pop culture. It’s good. Really.
Deadline says that “with the
help of her medical examiner boss and a police detective, she solves homicide
cases to quiet the voices in her head” in the TV show; this troubles me a
bit, because iZombie is more about a modern take on classic monsters and horror
than a straight-up procedural. And in the comic, there’s no medical examiner
boos (she gets her brains in her job as a cemetery groundskeeper) and no police
detective (although she does date a monster hunter later). In the comic, her
pals are the ghost of a teenager who died in the ’60s and a nerdy were-Terrier,
and it would be a real shame to lose them, because that broader scope was a
large part of iZombie’s charm.
Still,
I’d watch the hell out of an iZombie show helmed by the guy who did Veronica Mars. Of all the
myriad shows in DC/WB’s pool of development, this is the one I most want to
actually get made.
Thanks to Earthwulf for the tip!
https://earthwulf.kinja.com/izombie-tv-series-greenlit-1460654519
