“Yes, Rotten is a comic book series about the living dead terrorizing the Old West. No, zombies never appear in the story,” wrote USA Today’s John Geddes. “Confused? Don’t worry, creators Mark Rahner and Robert Horton can explain.”

The horror-western series is just the latest to catch the eye of the establishment media, and if you’re a horror fan it’s definitely worth checking out. Since the story is set in the old west, the word “zombie” never appears. That doesn’t mean there’s not plenty to bring the word to mind.

“Rotten (from Moonstone Books) is the story of two presidentially-appointed secret agents; one, a stop-lossed Civil War veteran with a chip on his shoulder (William Wade), the other a "company man" with a much more cerebral approach to the situations that they encounter (J.J. Flynn),” Geddes wrote. “The two have been tasked to investigate a terror crisis by Rutherford B. Hayes, a president who was elected to office without receiving the majority of the popular vote. If the political climate and character backgrounds sound as if they were ripped from early 21st century headlines, they were.”

Rotten #7 and a trade paperback collecting the first six issues are both due out in July 2010.