It focus on Bill Stokes, a kid who lives with his mother (he has a father but he's doing time after nearly burning their house down for insurance money). He was a fairly ordinary child with a love for video games while his mom worked to make ends meet by volunteering at various medical companies. However on one particular day his mother came back home with a mysterious virus which spread to him. While not as fully affected as his mother was, Bill finds his body slowly changing and gaining hunger for the must unusual things like rotted food. Now he must deal with these changes while having to survive school life, all of which he conveniently records within his dairy.
The book was originally titled Diary of a Zombie Kid, but was changed after Jeff Kinney, the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series sued the company thinking they were plagiarizing his books (despite it being obvious it was a parody and wasn't even close to resembling his works outside of story format). This is also the first AP comic to be sold in stores outside of comic shops due to the novel format.
Here's an animated teaser
made by Fred himself.
Zombie Kid Diaries has the following tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Despite originally getting sued by Jeff Kinney himself, the series is a loving parody of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the books that try to do a similar idea.
- Disappeared Dad: He's in prison for arson ...till the third book at least.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Nadine, Bill's mother, though it's not colored it's obvious she's sporting this.
- Gross Out Book: Bill often goes into great detail about the rotten piles of "food" he eats for breakfast each morning.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Man Made Virus type though so far it's unknown if it can be spread through a bite. Bill and his mother still retain their intelligence with Bill still being able to speak and act normally though his skin is rotting and he is beginning to gain a hunger for brains. He also gains the added benefit of special abilities like being able to stare for a long time and enhanced reflexes (which he finds perfect for gaming).
- Serious Business: Video Gaming for Bill.
- The Unintelligible: Bill's mother mostly speaks in groans due to being in an advance stage of the virus making it hard for Bill to understand her.
- Wacky Cravings: Bill gains these over the course of the series.
- Work Info Title
