IZombie (comic book)

iZombie, originally titled I, Zombie, is a comic book series created by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred, published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint beginning in 2010. The series deals with Gwen Dylan (née Gwendolyn Price), a revenant gravedigger in Eugene, Oregon, and her friends Ellie, a 1960s ghost, and Scott, a were-terrier. As a result of being bitten by a mummy, Gwen needs to eat a brain once a month to keep herself from regressing into a stereotypically primitive and homicidal zombie. As a gravedigger, she has plenty of access to recently deceased people; when she consumes their brains she "inherits" part of the deceased's thoughts. iZombie was nominated for the 2011 Eisner Award for Best New Series. The "monsters" in iZombie are explained via the concepts of over- and undersoul. The oversoul (as in Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Over-Soul") is "seated in the brain, contains the thoughts, memories, and personality", while the undersoul (as in Michael McClure's poem "Dark Brown") is "seated in the heart, contains the appetites, emotions and fears". Ghosts are thus bodiless oversouls; poltergeists, bodiless undersouls; vampires bodies without undersouls (thirsting for emotions); and zombies, bodies without oversouls. Revenants, like Gwen, are unique in that they possess both oversouls and undersouls. Souls can also "infect" the living, which accounts for the possessed, werewolves and the like. The characters of iZombie first appeared in a short story in the first House of Mystery Halloween Annual (2009). An iZombie story was also included in the second House of Mystery Halloween Annual (2010). The comic is notable for its use of real Eugene-area locations as settings, including the University of Oregon campus, the Shelton McMurphey Johnson House, the McDonald Theater, Eugene City Hall, and Ya-Po-Ah Terrace, as well as Portland's Oregon Convention Center and Oregon Zoo, and...