Same Hat! Same Hat! has announced that they and Last Gasp will be releasing Yuusaku Hanakuma’s manga Tokyo Zombie, an off-the-beaten-path/indie tale featuring characters from Hanakuma’s Meka*Afro-kun manga.

Tokyo Zombie is a horror-comedy manga about two blue-collar factory workers, Mitsuo and Fujio, whose plans for martial arts fame are sidelined when zombies take over Tokyo. In this gory and hilarious tale, the survivors of the zombie apocalypse have been enslaved by the wealthy ruling class, and must cater to their every depraved whim…or be thrown outside the city to fend for themselves. When some of the survivors are enlisted to fight in an undead gladiator arena for the amusement of the rich, Mitsuo and Fujio are locked in a battle for fame, freedom, and their very lives!

Years before Shaun of the Dead introduced Western audiences to the zombie comedy genre, Yusaku Hanakuma’s hilarious and outrageous manga was already a cult classic in Japan. Tokyo Zombie’s class-conscious storyline about the haves and the have-nots during a zombie uprising anticipated such films as George Romero’s Land of the Dead. Now English-speaking audiences will have the chance to check out the genre-mashing tale that started it all.

They’re hoping to have the book debut at San Diego Comic Con. If I hadn’t already been sold on it, the Shaun of the Dead reference would have clinched it. ♥