If Stefan Hutchinson and Robert Kirkman ever teamed up it would be such an unbridled wave of creativity, I don’t think my heart could take it. Current favorite writer Stefan Hutchinson continues his spree of paying homage to horror classics with “Day of the Dead: Desertion.” Meant as part-prequel/introduction to Romero’s “Day of the Dead,” this one shot is an attachment for the upcoming Blu-Ray special edition of “Day of the Dead,” and it is pure quality from page one.
Hutchinson, never one to half ass it, gives us a full fledged story that sets down in the middle of the zombie apocalypse focusing on the origins of the one and only Bub! You know him, you love him, he’s the zombie anti-hero who becomes the central focus for the Romero masterpiece. Stefan Hutchinson and Barry Keating are given the task of providing a creative and interesting origin for the character, and they simply do not fail in paying proper respect to the Romero creation. With excellent illustration by Jeff Zornow, “Desertion” is the tragic story of Bub, the man who led a life of misery and woe that spiraled in to even more misery involving his wife and son.
What the appeal of “Desertion” is, is that Hutchinson and Keating explore the origin of Bub while not giving everything away. What we learn is in increments and enough to allow us to get in close enough for a more complex look at an already unique character in the Romero lore. They don’t change things drastically but stick to the norms of the Romero universe while also adding their own touches on the side. They never give Bub an actual name, and we never quite learn why he deserted his unit, we only know that his primary focus is his family.
When he and his son come across a survivor willing to do anything (read: anything) to survive, they end up the victims of an ambush by a group of desperate survivors. Witnessing the horrific implications of being attacked by the desperate group, the man only known as Bub resorts to desperate measures to inflict equal amounts of pain on them, and Hutchinson and Keating show us how primal the human can be once all meaning and purpose have been erased. Bub becomes a monster before he’s even turned in to one of the walking dead, and the transformation is pretty compelling.
As you may have guessed by the brief intro of Bub in the film, the story of the zombie who was once human is about as heartbreaking as the creature he became to be and he’s only one out of a billion of the walking dead who managed to retain some form of his kindness and humanity. And like everyone else, even after death he’s a victim of human cruelty now and forever. Hutchinson and Keating bring their A game, and create the perfect companion piece to the “Day of the Dead” Blu-Ray release.