Posted By John Sears on February 3, 2011

Insurgent survival horror franchise ‘Dead Space’ has a sequel out, and it’s determined to go down as one of the most gruesomely violent Anti-Zombie games of all time, with a new special black mark for promoting violence against the most innocent and vulnerable Undead population, that of Zombie children:

Dead Space 2 is not just “zombies in space.” It is a space odyssey about the slow descent of one’s mind into madness and the visceral Lovecraftian monstrosities whose appearances boggle the mind.

…
For the uninitiated, “Necros” aren’t like your average zombie. If Isaac shoots a Necro in the head, all he has done is made it angrier and faster. Cutting off both legs forces the Necro to adapt, crawling (very quickly) toward Isaac with bone blades protruding from its arms.

Only complete dismemberment will put one of these creatures down for good.

…

Make no mistake, the horror in this game is unlike anything else experienced. It is not for the faint of heart.

You’ll witness packs of toddlers mutate before your very eyes. Hands that once held toys and crayons lust for nothing more than the drip of your blood between their fingers.

You’ll witness the desperation of a man as he fights to save his elderly mother from the undead threat, only to be dragged clawing and screaming into the darkness himself.

You’ll witness the relief of a mother embracing her young son, only for him to roar and tear out her loving heart.

Ghastly, repugnant, paranoid? Yes. But what’s worse is that we seem to be seeing an arms race in debasement in Anti-Zombie games. Whereas Anti-Zombie movies have moved in precisely the opposite direction, humanizing and studying their Zombie subjects more as the years go on, though not nearly enough, Anti-Zombie games have taken the opposite tack. Dead Rising and its sequel make murdering virtual Zombies into slapstick; Dead Space ups the gore to despicable levels and targets even more vulnerable Zombie populations.

Shocking, and unfortunate.

If you’re a brave soul and want to play this game, say, for us so that I can avoid the nausea, it’s available on Amazon.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on February 3, 2011

There are a lot of truly inspired, original creators in the indie film world, so it’s a shame to hear when one of them has gone to the dark side, say, by making a stoner comedy/Anti-Zombie film with truly graphic and gruesome violence against the Differently Animated:

How do you make a $2 million feature film for only $5,000?

Talk to Thomas Newman, producer and driving force behind Bong Of The Dead.

…

Bong Of The Dead (a title take-off on low budget zombie classic Dawn Of The Dead and the parodistic Shaun of the Dead) may just be the Citizen Kane of stoner-buddy-zombie movies – a sharply photographed, well-lit picture, rock-steady even in its frequent tracking shots, full of dynamic compositions and ingenious special-effects work.

…

The only apparent limitation is that it’s intended for a specific market niche – if slow-witted potheads, oozing zombie make-up and gallons of fake blood is your idea of cool, Bong Of The Dead is definitely the movie for you.

…

Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which meteorites have turned most of the population into zombies, Bong Of The Dead follows the misadventures of survivors Tommy (Harris) and Edwin (Wynn), whose principal occupation is growing (and smoking) as much pot as they can.

The discovery that zombie brains have a magic fertilizing effect – allowing them to grow a highly potent species of weed – sends the two stoners on a road trip into the “danger zone,” an area where the zombie population is concentrated.

It also sends them into the clutches of a Nazi-like gay zombie (Nerling) who plots to mobilize the other zombies into an “army of the undead.”

But along the way they meet another survivor, Leah (Bailly) – the kind of tough chick beloved of all action movies. She also happens to be an inventor who has built an array of zombie-fighting weapons on her farm – all of which the trio get to try out in a blood-splattered finale.

Dude, Where’s My Anti-Zombie Bigotry?

I honestly don’t know what to say. Newman has decided that not only does he have to revive the Nazi-Zombie connection, beloved of bad 80s movies, but that he’s going to throw in wholesale on-screen murder of the Differently Animated to make the Soylent Green version of Marijuana? Those poor Zombies! Victims of Big Agribusiness and the narco-cartels of the post-apocalypse.

This is just shockingly hateful stuff with a slick marketing angle, and, obviously, a very friendly relationship with the press. It could be going places, and that’s a shame – for Zombie Rights, anyway.

What happened to the good old days, when stoner comedies were inclusive, anyway? What a monstrous perversion of the form, transforming the sub-genre from its go-along, get-along roots to this divisive and destructive hate-peddling.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for this one on the indie film circuit, here at the ZRC.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Movies

Posted By John Sears on February 3, 2011

We’ve all seen how the Xbox 360 has become the platform par excellence for Anti-Zombie videogames, but it’s still disturbing to learn of how much support Microsoft is giving to the development of a ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ MMO:

Ask Jeff Strain what ultimate goal of his game studio Undead Labs is and he’ll give you a big answer, without a moment’s hesitation – Strain wants to create “a cultural phenomenon, rather than make mere games.”

The company’s vehicle for this has never been a secret: when it announced itself in 2009, its opening statement to the world was direct and to the point. Undead Labs wants to create the definitive, open world, online zombie experience, and it wants to do it on home consoles.

“We want to create the definitive zombie survival experience,” Strain told us in an interview. “It hasn’t been done yet, and we think that there’s a tremendous game there to be made, and we want to be the ones to make it.”

…

Strain’s dream online zombie game is still quite a ways away, but Undead’s small team has been working hard since its inception to make it happen. On Thursday, the team announced that it had partnered with Microsoft Game Studios to release its first title exclusively on the Xbox Live Arcade platform – a single-player, open world zombie survival game that will serve as both a sneak peak and a testbed for what Strain ultimately hopes to accomplish.

Once again we see the tired meme of the Zombie Apocalypse trotted out to create a ‘social’ game where players sit on their couches and plot the destruction/oppression of the Differently Animated. Only this bunch doesn’t just want to make a game, they want to create a “cultural phenomenon”. What phenomenon would that be? I shudder to think.

As recently discussed with the Penny Arcade controversy, we’re not apt to blame a single game or media product for the culture of violence and hate directed against Zombies, anymore than we blame a Dickwolves shirt for the ‘rape culture’. But these people openly admit that their plan is to infect the culture with more violence and distrust of the Differently Animated, so I think they opened the door to criticism on that level.

They’re like the Anti-ZRC; they want to change Zombie-Living relations – for the WORSE.

Appalling, and shocking to see, once again, Microsoft lining up with more support and exposure for the Anti-Zombie gaming world. Hasn’t Redmond done enough yet? When will they be satisfied?

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on February 3, 2011

Here is yet another story illustrating why the Zombie Rights movement is a natural ally to other oppressed minorities and their own quests for civil rights:

Summerville High School and Fort Dorchester High School are lucky enough to have a Gay Straight Alliance even though they’re located in the the relatively socially conservative state of South Carolina. Unfortunately, they almost stopped having one recently when the school board tried to shut it down after student complaints about its existence. Of course, they couldn’t just shut down the GSA because they didn’t like it; this is 2011, the era of strange/dubious excuses to mask homophobia.

Instead, they asserted that student clubs are meant to have a “curricular orientation,” and shouldn’t be focused around “personal identity.” One board member goes so far as to say that non-academic clubs distract students from their studies. So instead, the administration tried to shut down every non-academic club or organization, which included the Zombie Appreciation Club, the Prom Committee, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Video Games Club, among others.

Shocking, isn’t it? First, the rampant homophobia and hate that would lead a school to discriminate against a harmless club which promotes tolerance and understanding, and second, that they would shut down what might be the only club centered around APPRECIATING Zombies in the entire country in order to do it!

Fortunately, their plan did not succeed, and as yet, these clubs still exist in South Carolina. But the story serves as a cogent reminder of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us so many years ago:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

It’s so true. The Zombie Rights Campaign is on your side, Gay Straight Alliance of Summerville and Fort Dorchester high schools.

Category: Zombie Media, ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Academia, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on February 2, 2011

The plow came by this afternoon, and I got some pictures.

This is how Madison deals with winter, and one of the reasons this town is awesome. Eat that, Snowpocalypse!

(btw, they didn’t actually just haul this thing out for the Snowpocalypse; it’s plowed our cul de sac several times this winter. But it’s still awesome, even as it piles the snow up in my front yard)

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Posted By John Sears on February 2, 2011

So ‘Hollywood is Dead’ is a website that features the art of one Matt Busch, who is famous (or perhaps infamous) for taking traditional pop art, especially movie posters, and applying a Zombie gloss to them. The only real issue is that, well, it’s actually an Anti-Zombie gloss – Busch doesn’t so much dabble in prejudice against the Differently Animated as he slathers it on, using widely loved movies as a delivery mechanism for his twisted dislike of the Zombie Community.

Leading up to Valentine’s Day Bush is deploying a new suite of 9 posters, classic movies now ‘Zombified’, embodying the worst sort of Anti-Zombie stereotypes, blood and carnage:

Now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, Busch has painted 9 new infectious posters with a romantic theme. Paying special attention to cinematic love stories and “date movies”, this series offers classics like The Wizard of Oz (The Walking \ Dead of Oz), Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and the Feast), and Edward Scissorhands (Deadward Scissorhands). Beginning February 2nd, the Hollywood-is-Dead website will release a new poster each weekday, leading up to the final masterpiece on February 14th.

Yes, if you have a burning need to see allegedly Zombie versions of your classic movie icons, many are now available to heap scorn upon. Taglines from the films have been twisted into things like, “Deadward Scissorhands: Human flesh is what he needs. Beauty is what she sees.”

Where’s the positive side of the Undead, Mr. Busch? What exactly is so appealing, I often want to ask artists who wallow in the blood and guts aspects of Zombiism, with people rotting quietly in the ground? Or sitting in a small ashey pile in a jar on someone’s mantle?

Why is a world with Zombies so ‘bleak’, anyway? That’s his term, btw. From the about page on his site:

In this bleak vision, Hollywood may be dead, but these box office cadavers are sure to bring you coming back for more.

I’m still wondering here. I guess he’s one of those ‘glass is half empty’ types.

Don’t get me wrong, his raw artistic talent and ability to mimic the iconic work of others is astounding, even more so given that he apparently eschews digital software for most of his work. But I just wish he’d put it to a more Zombie Friendly message, and not all this ‘blood, guts, eat brains’ nonsense. Zombies are not simple skull-chomping death machines, Mr. Busch. Zombies are people too!

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Zombie Art

Posted By John Sears on February 2, 2011

The news that Glee will be performing after the Superbowl only makes me want to flee into a bunker deep underground, far from the range of any television signals, but this part of the story is interesting:

You’ve already heard the Glee cast put their jazz hands all over Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – but the zombified football number isn’t the only song on the show’s Super Bowl episode, “The Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle”. The members of New Directions also perform Lady Antebellum’s Grammy-nominated “Need You Now” and The Zombies’ “She’s Not There”, while the Warblers’ keep up their streak of turning female-voiced pop hits into a cappella triumphs with Destiny’s Child’s “Bills Bills Bills”. Listen to the episode’s set list below!

We here at the ZRC are wary of anyone adapting ‘Thriller’. ‘Thriller’ was, in its own way, an important cultural milestone for the Zombie Rights movement, because even as it indulged in some stereotyping of the Differently Animated, it also humanized and even romanticized being Undead, at least a little. In ‘Thriller’, Zombies aren’t confined to flesh-eating or shambling about; to the contrary, they are able to perform complex synchronized dance numbers, and nobody is actually eaten at all.

The importance of that step forward, dated as it may seem today when compared to more modern Zombie Friendly works, makes us wary of any loose, pop-adaptation, especially in today’s rabidly Anti-Zombie media climate.

The Horror Society reminded us recently just how visually daring the video actually was, featuring Zombies who might not be the most photogenic, but had a lot of heart. Will broadcast television even allow a non-conventionally beautiful Zombie on in primetime, or must one have basically ‘normal’ skin tone and all one’s limbs intact to be beamed into America’s living rooms?

I guess we’ll wait for the Glee thing to show up on youtube to make a final judgment. I’ll be spending ‘Superbowl Sunday’ in the bunker.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Music, Television

Posted By John Sears on February 2, 2011

Image Comics has decided that they really need more Anti-Zombie properties than their flagship ‘The Walking Dead’, and so are preparing an entire stable of Anti-Zombie properties centered around an alternate Vietnam war which changes dramatically with the appearance of the Differently Animated:

Imagine yourself a young adult in the late 60s. War is raging in the small Asian country of Vietnam, and you’re next in line for serving on the front lines.

And oh yeah, there’s zombies.

In real life you’d be the last one going back to a war-torn Vietnam filling up with zombies, but in the comics world the readers have been clamoring for the creators of the 2006 one-shot ’68 to do that very thing. And now they’re doing.

After 4 years I guess it’s time to return to Zombie bashing, eh? What did they do in the meantime, write comics about kicking puppies?

This time around it’s a four issue miniseries, plus backup stories and a spinoff about a ‘Zombie’ attack on a church called “Hallowed Ground”. See, because battlefields are sometimes described as hallowed ground, and churches are usually considered sacred territory, if not formally consecrated, depending on the religion, so, hah, it’s a clever… pun.

Uggh.

Read the whole interview if you like for a taste of just how giddy some people can be to bash the Differently Animated.

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Tags: Comics

Posted By John Sears on February 2, 2011

(drifts in front of the garage and such)

(I love these wind sculpted snow formations)

(the bush looks like it has a face)

(our industrious neighbors dug out this morning. the art director telecommuted and I was lazy, on the other hand)

(snow banisters)

(snow trees)

(No way I’m digging a path back to the park pench. See you next spring, Benchy!)

Category: ZRC News | No Comments »
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Posted By John Sears on February 2, 2011

The Zombie Rights Campaign has called for solidarity between Zombies and Mummies during this exciting yet perilous time for Egypt, homeland of many (though not all) Mummies. We believe in a broad front on the Undead Equality push, after all.

The ZRC was saddened to hear of a cowardly attack upon the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but it was also heartening to see the response from ordinary Living Egyptian citizens to this assault on one of the great centers of Mummy Culture: they formed a human wall around the Museum to prevent any further misbehavior and protect the Mummy related historical artifacts.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the attack itself are reports alleging that this vandalism was done as part of a campaign of terror and disinformation against the protestors by the authoritarian Egyptian government and the police forces still loyal to said government.

However, there has been considerable progress; President Mubarak, previously a leader of the ‘for life’ variety, periodically coronated in sham elections, has announced that he won’t seek ‘re-election’ again this fall.

As if that was a credible option.

Meanwhile the Egyptian army has announced that they will not be used to do the dirty work of the Mubarak regime, and will not fire upon civilian protestors.

Presumably this means they’d been *asked* to do so. Usually once the army has deserted a dictator they’re toast, but things are still up in the air.

With that in mind, the ZRC wants to show our solidarity with the Mummies, as well as the Living, citizens of Egypt, and so I had the art director whip up a new ZRC Desktop featuring our very first Spokesmummy, a cheerful fellow who goes by the name Amenhotep, ‘Tep’ for short:

Desktops of a variety of sizes are available here.

Credit where it’s due to the public domain hieroglyphics photograph used in the background (as well as our thanks)

Category: Zombie Media, ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Mummy Pride, Zombie Art