Shaun of the Dead (Graphic Novel)

Brief Review

I bought this graphic novel largely for the "deleted" scenes as mentioned on a few bookselling websites. I knew there were some scenes involving Mary the checkout girl and others in comic form, and I was hoping they would be in this volue. No, what's here is pretty much what you saw in the movie with some of the scenes shortened. In fact, they problematically weed out some scenes of those moments that made the movie a great mix of smart and dumb humor. Rather than "added to", we get "taken from".

Ed's "prediction" speech from the bar is gone, as his is "got wood" shirt. Pete's deconstruction of Shaun's life that leads to a lot of his attempts is gone. The two walks to the store are essentially gone (including the second one's excellent descent into ignorance no matter what). A lot of the background gags (news stations showing men in biohazard suits while Shaun looks away, for instance, or people coughing on the bus) have been overlooked, though a few new ones are in place and the timing on a lot of the jokes probably wouldn't make sense to you if you haven't seen the movie already.

All in all it keeps the big story well and intact, cuts out a lot of the "drawn out" sections of the movie, and offers a few new little visuals (zombie neighbor waving sort of things, single panel additions, leading me to now think that by deleted scenes they were referring to the comic, not the movie) but really doesn't equal the completeness of the original movie. The only real plus, here, are the extras. The covers and the "pin ups" included at the back are quite well done.