...because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were.

But no matter what happens to the surviving humans, there will always be the walking dead.

When I read Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns', I think it's a wonderful record of the Reagan era. I think it's amazing. This is the time I lived in.

Zombies let us explore notions of the apocalypse - no water, food, medical care, the government imploding - while letting us sleep at night.

When I started writing, there was nothing about zombies. It was all teen movies, which to me are scarier than zombies, but that's another story.

Any survival guide will tell you, don't buy a pair of combat boots before any disaster. They'll tear your feet up. Or water. Don't bring water with you because it'll tire you out and you'll lose too much fluid. Bring a water pump.

Zombies will try to scale any surface no matter how unfeasable or even impossible. In all but the easiest situations, these attempts have met with failure. Even in the case of ladders, when simple hand-over-hand coordination is required, only one in four zombies will succeed.