Zombie CSU (60 page)

So, what then makes for a great zombie song? Kramer says, “The best songs about zombies encompass all of the things for which zombies are known and loved—messily tearing through their graves to the surface to feast on the entrails and brains of slow witted (and moving) hapless human prey. Whether one is a fan of Goblin—the jazzy ensemble that’s scored more than a few gutchomping films since the 1970’s; old school 1920’s Southern Bluesmens’ tales of the restless dead; or if you’re just a death-grind-crust fanatic—the message remains pretty much the same. And that message is BRAINS! Why split hairs when you could be splitting intestines?”

So who listens to this music? “Well,” says Kramer, “I would think that there’s been ‘horror music’ since folks started banging on logs and telling stories to entertain other people. One need only look for biblical inspiration to know that bad news sells papers—and ultimately, record albums as well. Since the advent of the 20th century—feel free to point to the blues, rockabilly, rock and roll, heavy metal, punk, gangsta rap or the scapegoat of your choice for infernal inspiration.” He adds, with a wicked grin, “At this point I would say that fans of zombies, horror and death metal are about as intertwined culturally as they will ever be. They all end up meeting when the entrails go stale.”

Z
OMBIE
T
OYS

Zombies are everywhere…your kids may even cuddle up with one at night. Well, that is if your kids are kind of strange. Zombie toys are the new big thing and leading the pack is the wonderfully imaginative Teddy Scares. I met with Joe DiDomenico, creator of Teddy Scares, to ask him how these adorable zombie dolls came into being.

“Teddy Scares are a group of unloved teddy bears that were discarded by their owners and now they have returned from the ‘dead.’ They reside in a trash dump and wish for the days to be loved again. The bears were a combination of my love of toys and horror and mixed them into an adorable package. Teddy Scares was something that I would want as a fan of horror and I thought others would like it as well.”

Currently the product consists of 12” bears (Series 1 and 2), 6” bears (Morgue Minis), Graphic Novels (by Ape Entertainment), women’s fashion tees (Headline) and Calendars (Universe Publishing). We hope to extend out to many more product lines in 2008!”

But…why zombies?

“I believe people can relate to zombies because they are us except they lack a conscience. I see it almost as though there is a level of ‘realism’ about the undead that isn’t there with say vampires or werewolves.”

B
IG
O
LD
W
EB O
’ Z
OMBIES

Do a Google search on zombies. You will get more than thirty million hits. That’s a lot of online references to our shambling friends. Granted not all of them refer to the zombies as we’re defining them here, but even shaving off the references to Haitian culture, P-zombies, and colloquial uses of the word you’re still left with millions of sites, including tens of thousands of MySpace pages.
¹⁶

Teddy Scares

Teddy Scares, created by Joe DiDomenico and Phil Nannay…these should rock your kids to sleep at night.

Some of these sites (like the Zombie WorldNews mentioned elsewhere in this book) are devoted to establishing a higher standard of information and to providing the most reliable and accurate zombie data on all aspects of the genre.

One such site is
Revenant
Magazine (www.revenantmagazine.com), run by editor-in-chief Geoff Brough. I asked Brough to tell us about his ezine. “
Revenant
Magazine was established as the premiere online zombie magazine. There are some great horror publications out there that we really admire but we wanted to pay tribute to our favorite ‘monster’ by giving them the spotlight. We established our presence in an online format by covering all aspects of the zombie sub-genre, from books, film, comics, events, fiction, collectibles, etc. If it’s about the walking dead, we’re covering it. We hope to endeavor into a print format very soon.”

Though
Revenant
covers all aspects of zombie pop culture, there is a definite sense of homage to Romero. I asked Brough to comment on that: “George Romero has lived in some pretty turbulent times. He’s seen a lot of change in the world from the treatment of people in our country, wars, the civil rights movement, and assassinations, corrupt political figures…a lot of really crazy events. He’s one of the first to utilize the undead as a reflection of our societal behavior. His social commentary on racism and the treatment of African Americans in
Night of the Living Dead
was eye-opening and shocking. The anti-consumerism stance in
Dawn
is widely talked about and blatantly obvious. His films bring a scope of realism in a rather unconventional way but it works so incredibly well. It’s filmmakers like George Romero that not only keep the zombie film ‘alive’ but keep us on our toes about circumstances and events that shape our existence.”

Another site chockfull of good zombie info is Dead-Central.com, which contains some of the best interviews with Romero cast members (from all his films) on the web; it’s informative and has plenty of video, images, and fan forums.

Other popular undead sites include blogs: http://zombie-agogo.blogspot.com, http://zombiebloggers.blogspot.com, http://hungryzombie.blogspot.com; game sites: Undead Games (www.undeadgames.com), Kill the Zombies (www.killthezombies.com), Urban Dead (www.urbandead.com); general zombie pop culture sites: Eat My Brains (www.eatmybrains.com), Zombie Rama (www.zombierama.com), I Love Zombies (www.zombiejuice.com/zombies.htm), All Things Zombie (www.allthingszombie.com); toys: My Pet Zombies (www.mypetzombies.com); zombie apocalypse preparedness sites: Zombie Squad (www.zombiehunters.org), Zombie Defense (www.zombiedefense.org), The Federal Vampire & Zombie Agency (www.fvza.org), Zombies Outside (www.zombiesoutside.com), Dead-Central (www.dead-central.com); how-to sites for turning yourself into a zombie: (www.zombiemaker.com); zombie pumpkin carving sites: (www.zombiepumpkins.com); zombie warning devices: (www.loris.net/zombie).

Z
OMBIE
G
AMES

Resident Evil
is the king of zombie games, but it’s in no way the only game in town. Zombie games, ranging from first-person shooters to RPGs ( role-playing games) are vastly popular worldwide.

I asked Michael Tresca, author of
Blood & Brains: The Zombie Hunter’s Guide
, a supplement for the d20
¹⁷
modern role-playing game, to comment on why zombie games are so incredibly popular. “Zombies are hilarious. They’re dead, they lurch, they moan—it’s hard to take them too seriously. Even in the undead hierarchy they’re pretty ridiculous, well below ghosts and vampires. What other sub-genre of horror can be so disturbing and amusing at the same time?”

He talked about creating his zombie guide for gamers: “Beyond my love for Evil Dead, I decided that if I was going to write a book about zombies, I’d better become better versed in the zombie genre. My Netflix account got a lot of use. I bought as many books on zombies as I could find and read a lot on the Internet. And thus I discovered all kinds of zombies I didn’t know about. Templar zombies, Nazi zombies, astro zombies, alien zombies, video zombies…there are endless varieties of zombies that scientists are creating even as we speak! Then it was just a matter of putting it all down in PDF format. The artist, John Longenbaugh, perfectly captured the style I was looking for. I added in my short story, ‘Robots vs. Zombies,’ about two geeks who defend a hardware store against cryogenic zombies. Chris Davis provided the green and red template and brickwork design that established just the right gritty feel.”

Blood and Brains
cover art by Jeremy Simmons

“What other sub-genre of horror can be so disturbing and amusing at the same time?”—Michael Tresca, author of
Blood and Brains: The Zombie Hunter’s Guide