Zombies versus hacienderos. This is how director Mike Alcazaren describes Death Be Damned (DBD), the graphic novel he wrote, illustrated by Noel Pascual and AJ Bernardo. Formerly a series called Patay Kung Patay, the translated version won Best Graphic Novel in English at the 41st National Book Awards.

DBD was supposed to be Alcazaren’s second film. He wanted to do a zombie film, but with Filipino flavor. He thought that publishing it as a comic book first could help determine if there was an audience for it. He mentioned it to Jessica Zafra, who introduced him to Noel Pascual and AJ Bernardo, known for their series Crime Fighting Call Center Agents.

“We met at a coffee shop and we hit it off. I like their humor,” Alcazaren said. “I had a complete story outline. It's essentially a hierarchy of who's going to get killed. It just depends on the gravity of their crime and then who would be the most satisfying kill at the end. I didn't want it to be a serious zombie thing, but to have dark humor.”

The graphic novel is seen from the point of view of a news team who sneak in to cover a celebration at the Muguerza family hacienda and end up being caught in a zombie siege led by a 12-year-old girl exacting revenge for her family who were massacred for their farmland.

“I wanted it to be very Filipino. In the Philippines, everything's political,” Alcazaren said.

Drawing from classic horror films such as George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which is a subtle commentary on racism, he chanced on an article about a small farming community whose land was being bought by a developer. “There were holdouts, so there was a standoff… and one day, a couple of farmers were found dead. Those were the holdouts,” he said in Taglish. “The [developer] managed to purchase the land… and nothing happened to the case. It was a nice setup for a revenge story.”

The supernatural element was important. “In the Philippines, you don't get justice, so it has to be something paranormal or beyond human nature.”

The series took a while to finish because of funding issues, but it was such a hit that not only did the team manage to finish the story, they managed to produce an English version as well. The pandemic stalled their progress for a while, but Alcazaren happily noted that DBD has found a new audience.

“We were starting to get the Gen Zs and the younger Millennials. They found it interesting. They didn't know who we were. They’d ask, ‘What’s that?’ and I’d say, ‘It’s zombies versus hacienderos,’ and they found it very interesting,” he said. “I'm pleasantly surprised there's a new leadership out there, especially with what's happening in the Philippines.”

Given current events, there’s a lot of reasons why readers would gravitate towards a story that involved agricultural implement-wielding zombies.

“People are fed up with all this impunity and all the corruption,” Alcazaren said. “It hit a nerve with the young ones because they're also struggling… and everything is not fair. So, it's an outlet for them.”

Alcazaren’s topic choice wasn’t accidental. He’d been working on farmer and farmland documentaries for decades. “I've always been political, I just put it out in a different form of storytelling now.”

Its socio-political content aside, what made DBD so popular was because it’s fun to read. “It’s always hard to talk about abstract concepts of justice and land for all without getting too dogmatic… so, humor or satire is the best avenue. Horror cloaked in comedy is easier to digest rather than doing something really heavy. Because yes, it could be very powerful, but for regular people who are not really political, this is a better way of telling the story.”

DBD has since been translated into German and Alcazaren still hopes that it becomes a film one day.

It’s also led him down interesting paths, including being asked to speak at a farmer activist gathering and at an Amnesty International event.

DBD isn’t just a story that gives a literal meaning to the phrase “eat the rich.” For Alcazaren, it’s also an exercise in storytelling. “I hope it inspires the younger generation to explore different forms of storytelling,” he said. “This is my own way of exploring, because I was primarily a film director [and an] advertising person. I found a different avenue to tell a story and it ended up being very fulfilling.”