On the opening day of the 2013 New York Comic Con independent comic book publisher, ComixTribe, announced Cuddlers, the first of four new titles to be released in 2014 revealed at the convention.

Cuddlers, is a new series written by Yannick Morin and illustrated by Alex Cormack. When his hometown is struck by a mysterious disease that transforms its victims into cat-obsessed “cuddlers”, a young rebel teams up with a cast of unlikely allies to stop the plague before it spreads all over 1950s America. Combining what the Internet told us you already love – cats and zombies – this coming-of-age horror comedy will force you to laugh and scream throughout its three malodorous issues.

“Everyone thinks they have a new spin on the zombie genre. I usually laugh at them, and go back to reading Kirkman’s book ,” said ComixTribe publisher Tyler James. “But what Yannick and Alex are cooking up here actually is that brilliant, original twist, backed by crazy but true science… this book will knock readers for a loop.”

Where does an idea like this come from? According to Cuddlers writer, Yannick Morin, the answer is wasting time on the internet.

“One day, I was browsing the web instead of working on a column, and I came across this article about Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that’s found in cat droppings and that makes rats unafraid of their natural enemy. It actually makes them seek out cats to get eaten by them, and thus perpetuate the parasite’s lifecycle in a new kitty digestive tract. When humans get infected however, they just get sick. That’s pretty boring really, so I thought: “Hey, why not have the humans go cat-crazy as well?”

“After collaborating on “Nearly Perfect” for the Oxymoron anthology, Yannick and I wanted to work together again on a new project,” said series artist Alex Cormack. “I thought another horror story would be great, but my wife suggested we do a romantic comedy. So Yannick and I decided to put the two together and throw in a bunch of cats.”

For long-time comic editor Morin, writing Cuddlers has been a significant undertaking. “Every time I sit down to work on this thing, I’m haunted by all of the criticism I’ve formulated about other people’s writing, either as an editor or simply as a reader. As I damn should be. We should all be held accountable of the feedback we give others. Cuddlers is a labor of love, yes, but it’s also me putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to storytelling,” he said of working on the series.

Cuddlers will be a three-issue mini-series, debuting in mid-2014.