Back from the dead: The Seattle Times examines the growing popularity of zombies in film, video games and comics:

"This ain't a Psych 101 primer, but we'll let you pick our brains: Zombies are easier for monster-jaded audiences to buy into than other types of overfamiliar or preposterous menaces. They're just people, and maybe people you know, turned into mindless, inexorable things who don't just want to kill you, but devour your flesh. There are subtler fears, such as being absorbed into a group, and the original Dawn's satiric warning of idiot consumerism. But take that folkloric fear of the undead which has always run through ghost stories, add the species-deep terror of being eaten, throw in a helping of apocalyptic dread, and you've got yourself a horror subgenre with legions of slack-jawed fans."