Burbank, CA. -- They introduced the world to the paranormal clean-up crew, the Post Mortem Animation Control (P.M.A.C.), in the outrageous, award-winning independent short, P.M.A.C.:When Zombies Attack!! They made comic book history with the five part mini-series adaptation When Zombies Attack!!. Now Red Maverick Publishing, in association with Grimm Grotto Goods, chews its way into the board book market with Zombie Food: A Tommy Tendertreat Tale!
Running 14 pages of a durable board book format, designed to withstand the ferocious teething stages from most kids bites, Zombie Food reintroduces young Tommy Tendertreat, last seen in the GGG short film Waker Safety, as he makes the jump from puppet show theater to cleverly conceived board book.
Written and Illustrated by Chad Waters, the book features puppets created by Matt Rose and Waters. Combined with both practical and digital sets, Waters set out to emulate the look of still frames from classic stop motion mixed with current animation techniques to create something rarely seen in a board book. "It's like Rankin & Bass meets Pixar" says Waters. "Plenty of inspirations from my childhood are present in this book." Further inspired by Dr. Seuss, as evidenced in the sing-song-nature of the narrative, it all began, according to author and illustrator Chad Waters, because his four-year-old daughter was inexplicably drawn to the images he was creating for an experimental art piece for When Zombies Attack!!
"I thought, well, she likes this, I like this, why don't I just keep going?" says Waters. "And although the book is formatted like a children's book, I figured if I could make it appealing for both the parents and their kids, it would make it twice as fun."
The bigger question that may arise is, why produce this book now? The When Zombies Attack!! franchise has been in existence since 2002, when it was officially introduced at the infamous Comic-Con International: San Diego. Followed by the Waker Safety line of accompanying puppets in 2004, then the comic book series debut in 2005, and now the Tommy Tendertreat board book series in 2015. It's a concept, according to Waters, that simply refuses to die. "It's difficult to let go of our baby, When Zombies Attack!!, with the amount of work Matt Rose and I put into it," Waters says. "When I set out to do this book - using When Zombies Attack!! characters as a starting point - it was convenient and just had to be done because these puppets have just been sitting and staring at me, demanding to be used. The material can be expanded in many exciting directions and easily blossomed within a children's book. This particular take hasn't been done before and will help build our brand, by showing it in another fun and diverse way.
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