Zombies’ popularity is just like a zombie. You think it’s dead, but it just keeps coming back. 2003’s The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks was so immensely successful that it spawned offshoots: a deck of cards, a mini-journal, mini-notepads, an audio disc, etc. Then a few years later, Brooks, having established himself as sort of the “zombie authority” around here, wrote the novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which was also very successful.

Soon, though, we’ll be hearing a fresh voice on the not-so-fresh (literally/olfactorily) topic. Coming in March 2009 from Doubleday is Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, a comedic novel featuring a “newly minted” zombie whose sad post-existence drives him to Undead Anonymous in search of moral support. The book’s campaign has produced this new hilarious new “ad” for Necrobufrin: Zombie Antidepressant. Take a look.

Don’t count out Max Brooks, though. Next summer, he’ll be cracking a new medium with a graphic-novel follow-up to The Zombie Survival Guide, subtitled “Recorded Attacks.” Stay tuned. And stay alive.

-David