What a very exciting time to be alive if you love the dead. That may not have come out right, but it's still very true. The great thing about the world of zombies is that the more excited people get and the more widespread the audience, the more content will be produced. That means comic books, zombie t-shirts, literature, television shows, and movies will all be featuring our new favorite undead. Move over sparkling vampires, because a new monster is in town.

There were zombie movies before 1968...but who really cares? It took director George Romero to make a social statement using these living dead for people's imagination to really be captured. The grand scale of Romero's work is what really did the trick. The movie "The Night Of The Living Dead" may have taken place mainly at a rural farmhouse, but you definitely got the impression that what was happening was a world-wide event. Zombie movies are never really about the zombies, but about what the people do who are thrust into such ghastly situations. You can bet your undead britches that zombie t-shirts got sold because of this film.

George Romero knew he had struck gold when "Night Of The Living Dead" was so critically acclaimed. Two more zombie films followed the first, and Romero continued his legacy until the late 1980's with "Dawn Of The Dead" and "Day Of The Dead." The movies were great individually, but as a trilogy they set the rules for all zombie films to come. If they weren't modeled after the Romero zombie, then they were just not acceptable. While not my favorite film, "Dawn Of The Dead" zombie t-shirts can be seen everywhere these days.

It took about two decades before the world took a serious look at zombies in horror flicks again. In 2004, my personal favorite Romero movie was remade by Zach Snyder. "Dawn of the Dead" was received with awesome reviews from critics and moviegoers alike. Many of the hardcore Romero nuts wanted to make a stink over the "fast zombies", but that's just being silly. There were plenty of people running out and buying zombie t-shirts and other merchandise from the movie afterward.

Less than a decade later, zombies are still on fire with popularity. Two new franchises have been developed for print, and are currently in development for film. "The Walking Dead" is currently in its second season and seeing massive responses in popularity. Max Brooks' huge bestseller "World War Z" is being made into a movie with Brad Pitt as the star. In a year, I bet we'll see zombie t-shirts on everyone of all ages. So long to the vampires and wizards, because it's time to get gory.