Romero writing LIVING DEAD novels

Dread Central reports that George A. Romero, the man who kicked off the modern zombie movie craze with his 1968 shocker classic Night of the Living Dead, is currently working on a pair of novels set in his Living Dead universe. He tells the site he is now close to signing a deal with Grand Central Publishing of New York.

Romero has had a rocky but always fascinating career. The original Night of the Living Dead was a low-budget hit that would go on to have a massive influence on later horror pictures, but due to a copyright mishap the film quickly lapsed into the public domain and Romero saw only a fraction of the profits he would've enjoyed otherwise. In the '70s and '80s Romero had a very successful run of horror films and TV projects - although, as he told us in a Darkworlds.com interview, he sometimes longed to move beyond the horror genre that made him famous. His film career cooled in the '90s, but then early in the new millennium zombies made a big comeback, and so did Romero. He directed 2005's Land of the Dead, 2008's Diary of the Dead, and is currently in production on an as-yet-untitled zombie indie, his sixth film in the Dead franchise.

The novels will reportedly be set in the first days of the Zombie Apocalypse, and will perhaps finally answer the question of why the dead have risen from the grave.