Graphic Novel Picks Up 28 Days R. Eric Lieb, editor-in-chief of Fox Atomic Comics, revealed to SCI FI Wire that the company will release a graphic novel called 28 Days Later: The Aftermath that will serve to flesh out the time period between Danny Boyle's cult hit film 28 Days Later and his upcoming sequel, 28 Weeks Later. "There's a lot of fun things that aren't covered in the movie, and the graphic novel takes the mythology of the film to flesh out some elements of it and expand it further into the realm of 28 Weeks Later," Lieb said in an interview at New York Comic Con over the weekend.
"28 Days Later has such a rich mythology," Lieb added. "The first movie is so strong. It's such a good and scary movie, and I'm not going to say the 'Z' word, because it's a movie about the 'infected,' which gives it such a unique twist. But at the end of the first movie, it says [people] are infected with rage, and you never find out what exactly caused it or if the infected are in such a rage, why don't they attack each other? We explore that in the graphic novel. So, therefore, the graphic novel isn't just a bridge between 28 Days and 28 Weeks." Lieb said they were able to lure renowned horror scribe Steve Niles (30 Days of Night, Wake the Dead) to write the book. "He was my first choice, by far," Lieb said. "We took it to him, and he accepted, because he is a very big fan of the first movie. People obviously know his pedigree in this world. He's done horror like no other." Broken into four stories, 28 Days Later: The Aftermath follows the canon created by Boyle for the film franchise. "It involves the initial outbreak not shown in the first movie. It takes place at different stages throughout that first outbreak," Lieb revealed. "The first stage explains the development of the virus with the scientists and ultimately the accident and the corruption that made it from a good thing into a very bad thing. The second stage takes place during the first days of the outbreak, so you see the chaos in London. The third stage takes place during the time frame of the first movie. In the movie, the survivors, Jim [Cillian Murphy] and Selena [Naomie Harris], move out of London. This story stays in London and talks about a survivor who is actively fighting, and he honestly enjoys it. He's the last person in London, and it's his city now. The fourth story brings everything in the graphic novel together and provides a bridge to 28 Weeks through a subtle revelation about what is happening to the virus." 28 Days Later: The Aftermath is available in bookstores April 3. The sequel film, 28 Weeks Later, opens in theaters May 11. —Tara DiLullo Bennett
