From Mickey Mouse To Zombies. An Interview with S.G. Browne

Our good friends over at Zombies and Toys have a great interview with Zombie Novelist S.G. Browne that is definitely worth checking out. His new book Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament is just hitting the shelves and this is a perfect chance to get to know the man behind the zombies.

What was the first zombie movie you saw and what about it still sticks with you?

Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead, which I saw for the first time in 1977. The stark, terrifying reality of it and the death of the hero at the end are what stick with me the most. It’s still the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. And I have the line “They’re coming to get you, Barbara” on my iTunes.

If you had to pick a single, favorite zombie film what would it be and why? I’ll even cheat and allow you to name your other favorites too. So what are they?

Night of the Living Dead, because it’s the benchmark of zombie horror and the archetype for the modern conception of zombies. Other favorites? Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, Dawn of the Dead (the remake by Zack Snyder), and Shaun of the Dead.

What zombie books are you most fond of?

To be honest, I haven’t read a lot of zombie fiction, though I have World War Z by Max Brooks and The Living Dead (a collection edited by John Joseph Adams) on my To Be Read list. Oh, and Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum was a kick in the pants.

Most readers don’t know that Breathers actually began as a short story. How much time lapsed between the completion of the short story and the beginning of Breathers as we know it?

I completed “A Zombie’s Lament” in 2001. I wrote the first scene for Breathers two years later in a hotel room in Ventura, CA, but I didn’t really start writing the novel until early 2004. So three years. Or maybe technically two. Is that a vague enough answer?

Check out the rest of the interview over at Zombies and Toys.