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Newspaper Comics Defame Zombie Snowmen

Posted By on January 8, 2011

Alert cultural historian and ZRC Stringer Andrew Leal pointed the ZRC toward a couple of recent newspaper comics that featured Zombie snowmen… in a very negative light.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking: “Newspapers still have comics?”

Astonishingly enough, they do! What’s more, they almost all pick the comics to grace their pages from a small group of syndicated offerings, so most papers carry mostly the same ones.

About now you might be checking to see if your city or town still has a functional newspaper; many, in fact, still do. Dead trees are regularly pulped for a one-time-use news publication that is out of date before its first reader picks it up and gets newsprint on their fingers.

It’s true.

What’s even more surprising is that the Zombie (and often Anti-Zombie) craze sweeping America for the last couple of years has actually penetrated this Lost World of sequential art, and combined with the season, has led to..

Zombie Snowmen.

Tragically, the comics are pretty unenlightened on the subject.

First up we have a strip from “Baby Blues” running today, January 8th:Sadly, not an inaccurate depiction of our Anti-Zombie media.

I felt a bit ambiguous about this comic strip. At first glance it might be critiquing the Anti-Zombie media, right? Well.. I don’t think that’s the message. Rather, I think that here we’re seeing a ‘classic’ parental reaction to their children casually enjoying grotesquely violent media. Unfortunately in order to make the joke, this comic chooses to push the harmful Anti-Zombie brain-eating stereotype, and onto a Zombie SNOWman no less.

Next up, a few days ago on January 5th, Wizard of Id ran this comic:All is suffering in the blasted world of Wizard of Id

For those unfamiliar with it, ‘Wizard of Id’ is ostensibly set in a medieval kingdom run by a brutal despot and his right-hand wizard, where all is suffering and woe forever, justice is non-existent, torture and torment common and crushing poverty and despair the norm.

Yes, that is the setting for a ‘humorous’ comic strip, I understand your confusion.

Still, even by its standards, this comic is appalling. Just examine the image a bit closer:

-It’s a bitterly cold day with ample snow and yet no one, not even the mighty wizard, can afford to wear shoes.
-The impoverished children, no doubt attempting to distract themselves from their plight, build a snowman outside the castle walls.
-Somehow these children have been informed of Frosty the Snowman, a cultural product from a less-starvation-filled age, which won’t exist for centuries, and emulate it.
-Upon seeing this temporary break in their collective misery, the Wizard insinuates himself and, on the pretense of replacing Frosty’s missing magic hat, uses one of his own devising to create a Zombie Snowman, which is then depicted in the stereotyped and unfair manner common to Anti-Zombie media.

What we see here is really a double tragedy: the children are traumatized, of course, but what about the Zombie Snowman? Thanks to foul sorcery he is now fulled with an insatiable hunger, but he’s still a Snowman. Presumably he cannot move, let alone hunt or eat; no wonder the Wizard looks upon the final scene so calmly. He has inflicted suffering across the land, as his dark master (the King or Satan, take your pick) commands, and is in no danger himself. All in all, a solid afternoon’s work.

For evil.

So the legacy media is now spreading a new variant on the Anti-Zombie stereotype, bashing innocent Zombie Snowmen.

Snowmen like ours. Remember this jolly fellow?

IMG_1122

Snowmen like these, and of course Zombies in general, are harmed by these negative portrayals. So, for those of you out there who might, by chance, patronize these ancient media platforms known as ‘newspapers’, ask yourselves: ‘Do I really want to give money to institutions which blatantly stereotype harmless and innocent Zombie Snowpeople?’

Do you? If you’re reading this blog, I doubt it.

Something to keep in mind for the future.

Yet More Anti-Zombie Apps for iPhone

Posted By on January 8, 2011

Just a quick post to outline a couple of new entries in the flood of Zombie themed games coming out for the iPhone.

First, a game that tries to tie the two greatest and most exaggerated fears of modern America together: Zombies and terrorism.

Creatively enough, it’s called Terrorist Zombies:

Legions of zombies are taking over the world after terrorists unleashed an experimental neurotoxin. As a marine, you are to defend what little remains of human civilization by gunning down incoming zombies to buy uninfected civilians enough time to evacuate. This is the futuristic scenario presented in Terrorist Zombies by Appular. How many zombie waves can you survive?

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that Zombies might become the newest acceptable targets of oppression in the name of Homeland Security, or that once again, Zombies are automatically excluded from ‘human civilization’, as if they have nothing to contribute to said civilization and deserve none of its rewards.

Next up is ‘Zombie Trailer Park’ which manages to stereotype trailer parks, rednecks and Zombies all at once:

The application developer’s description of the application is, “Zombies have taken over and destroyed the Metropolis – luckily you were never much for city folk. But now the zombies have turned their sights on your trailer park! Manage your economy and train fighting units to defend your trailer park. Gather “Yee-Haw” power to activate super weapons. Submit and share your best stage times with your friends. Here come the zombies! Go go go!”

Yee-Haw power? Seriously?

Yet another Zombie Apocalypse, and yet another ‘defend the farmhouse/homestead/fortress’ scenario. Honestly. How many times are we going to see variations on this theme? Why can’t the Anti-Zombie game producers come up with something at least a little bit more original?

Thus this week we have defending Living people in a Fall of Saigon scenario, and defending a trailer park from Zombies, who probably just want to check out some affordable housing, but do they get a chance?

Nooooooo.

Separate but Equal is not acceptable, blast it. When will society learn this simple lesson?

ZRC Reviews – ‘Zombie Bites’ Game

Posted By on January 8, 2011

The ZRC learned about ‘Zombie Bites’ via Google and went to see if it was as unfortunately negative for the Zombie Rights movement as the title hinted it probably was.

First, the basic description:

You’ve been turned into a zombie! In order to survive you need to feed on human beings. Press the spacebar to bite humans and restore your energy. Use the arrow keys to move and jump. But watch out, each human infected becomes an enemy you have to defeat.

Notice the way this is phrased to indicate the supposed fundamental inhumanity of Zombies. You, the player, have been turned into a Zombie. Now to survive you have to feed on ‘human beings’.

A bit subtler than your standard Romero/Kirkman stuff but the implication is clear: Zombies are not people, says the game. You are supposedly playing as a monster that spreads its own monstrousness to feed implacable hunger.

Then you go into the game itself and things only get worse.

Check out this title screen, for example: zombie_bites2

It’s literally dripping with blood! Even the title screen is awash in violence.

Once you get into the actual game the sinister and cruel inner workings become clear. Observe:zombie_bites3

The player character, purported to be a Zombie, starts off with an ample life bar, only here representing one’s remaining internal supply of food. See, when you start, you’re full, but rapidly this bar shortens until you starve, go into a ‘frenzy’, and perish. The only alternative is to devour the tiny pixellated humans. This is presented as an inherently bad thing, and they run in terror at the mere sight of a Zombie, whether you or the Zombie brethren you create when you ‘feed’ upon them.

Yet, look closer: these little pixel humans are either so stupid that they walk merrily to their death in pits, or are already suicidal and want to perish. Once Zombified, they do indeed feed on other living humans, but no longer seem determined to destroy themselves. Instead, they seem to be happier and more fulfilled, and unlike the player character, do not have to regularly eat Living people to survive.

So in fact, aren’t you doing them a favor, restoring a measure of purpose and contentment to their lives?

In spite of this altruism, the game’s mechanics mean that the number of Zombies in the playing area increases exponentially, and so it becomes harder and harder to find enough suicidal pixel-people to eat, and you are inevitably doomed, whereupon you see a screen like this one:

zombiebitesscore1

Your Undead friends and family shed tears for you! Doesn’t this indicate their fundamental humanity? Don’t they, and your character, deserve better treatment than to be forced into this grey-blocked labyrinth of woe?

As you progress in skill and points, more messages become available, indicating that your Zombified, pixellated comrades hold you in high regard for saving them from whatever problems they couldn’t face while still alive:

zombie_bitesgamescore

Yet, in spite of that mutual respect, note how they’re described: a horde.

Zombies just can’t escape the negative messaging machine, can they?

For these reasons, and for concocting such a cruel and unrealistic zero-sum game scenario between the Living and the Differently Animated, we are forced to give Zombie Bites our lowest score, that of Living Supremacist:

Zombies are people too, even if they're pixellated.

The ZRC and the 1 Second Film

Posted By on January 7, 2011

Here at The Zombie Rights Campaign we feel strongly about supporting works of art and media that *don’t* abuse the Differently Animated in these dark times, even more so when the works promote inclusiveness and tolerance.

So when we heard about the 1 Second Film, a massively collaborative effort to produce a 1 second long IMAX film, we were immediately intrigued.

Essentially the way it works is this: the people behind this film, which consists of 24 frames of several very large paintings for one brief second (followed by an hour long documentary on the project over the massive credits list) are raising money via the magic of the internet. Anyone and everyone is welcome to donate to help make the project a reality, which of course means that Zombies, their allies and advocates, and those unfortunately Anti-Zombie individuals alike are all able to participate.

Naturally, this meant the ZRC felt compelled to best a prominent Anti-Zombie figure, and who should appear in the film’s donor list?

Woody Harrelson, star of the odious Living-Supremacist ‘comedy’ Zombieland. He donated $1.

We can top that! And thus, we did. Check out the ZRC’s profile page.

So far, we’ve donated two whole dollars. It’s not much, but it’s twice what the Anti-Zombie movie icon chipped in, so we feel we’re tipping the scales in favor of Zombie Friendliness a little bit at a time here. If anyone else out there wants to help toward our total they’re more than welcome, of course. No pressure.

Update: I forgot to mention, all the money donated goes to a good cause:

Once finished, we plan to have a theatrical premiere. After the premiere, our animation paintings will be on exhibit and then auctioned off. All profits raised by the film and art will be donated to the Global Fund for Women, a non-profit grant making organization that supports Women’s Human Rights around the world. To oversee our project, we started a 501(c)3 non-profit called The Collaboration Foundation. Once finished, participants will be invited to participate in more non-profit collaborations. For more info about our future projects, check out our 5 Phase Plan to bring people around the world together via collaborative art.

ZRC Reviews: Call of Duty (Black Ops)

Posted By on January 7, 2011

The ZRC attended a New Year’s Eve party last week and surprisingly enough, even on our night off, The Cause found us and demanded attention, as the party-goers had Call of Duty: Black Ops playing on a tv downstairs.

Eventually the siren song of Zombie Rights demanded that I try it out. The results were not pretty.

First, some background. Call of Duty: Black Ops is a sequel to Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World at War, and both Call of Duty titled games have featured Anti-Zombie components/gameplay modes. Call of Duty: Black Ops has sold ridiculously well, 7 million copies in the first day, according to the wikipedias.

The Zombie component of Black Ops, judging by our New Year’s experience, is a very popular piece of this very popular game.

It is also ludicrously offensive.

I got the chance to sit down and play one of the two big Zombie slaughtering stages, the World War II themed Kino der Toten (Theatre of the Dead) stage, for several hours. A few thoughts:

1) This game, without a doubt, qualifies as Living Supremacist. The ‘protagonists’ that the players operate defame and mock the Differently Animated as monsters and abominations even as they gun them down, wave after wave of poor Zombies facing far superior firepower.

2) Players are placed into the role of the barricade-defending archetype established in Night of the Living Dead, only here the violence and black humor are greatly increased. Whereas Romero intends to emphasize the purported ‘horror’ of the Undead, Treyarch (this game’s developer) definitely intend to focus on dehumanizing the Differently Animated and making it ‘fun’ to mow them down.

3) Realism in terms of combat is sacrificed to create an easy to use sort of experience treadmill, where killing Zombies directly leads to earning money which gets you more guns to kill more Zombies which opens doors so you can find more Zombies and more guns, etc. If you don’t participate in the treadmill system, given no chance to negotiate peaceably, you get attacked by the Zombies. Advancement or even stasis demands carnage.

4) The Zombie characters definitely come off better than the protagonists. Note that while the Living player characters take no prisoners and blatantly violate the Geneva Conventions, the Zombies will leave players alone once they have been incapacitated; Zombies, unlike the alleged ‘heroes’ you play, take prisoners.

And yet they are the bad guys, and you get points and acclaim for blasting them.

After a few hours I thought I had seen enough, and swallowing my disgust, filed away my experiences for a review. Conclusion? Call of Duty: Black Ops is a disturbing, violent, crass, slick and very well produced piece of Living-Supremacist propaganda.

Thus it receives our very lowest rating, Living-Supremacist.

The Zombies you attack in this game take prisoners.  Don't you feel ashamed now?

Shame on Treyarch for peddling this filth.

Xbox Live Arcade Puts Anti-Zombie Games on Sale

Posted By on January 7, 2011

Apparently Microsoft doesn’t feel they’ve done their part to foment prejudice against the Differently Animated yet, so they’re putting Anti-Zombie titles on sale:

If that doesn’t quite sate your gaming appetite, Live is also throwing a random “Back from the Dead” promotion by cutting the price of Zombie Apocalypse and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai to 400 Points ($5) each. Plants vs. Zombies will continue the promotion the following week by going on sale for 800 Points ($10).

We’ll probably pick up The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai game to review; we already reviewed both Plants vs. Zombies (which didn’t receive a formal rating at the time, but could be safely pegged as Anti-Zombie) and Zombie Apocalypse (which the ZRC rated as Living Supremacist).

Microsoft has tragically made their Xbox 360 platform a premiere venue for virtual violence against the Differently Animated, with everything from Resident Evil 5 to Dead Rising 2 and lots of games and ports available on Xbox Live. We don’t know what has inspired this animus; it might simply be that such deplorable violence sells well.

Still shocking and appalling behavior from one of the world’s largest media companies, and this latest promotional event is a sad reminder of their irresponsibility.

Details of said irresponsibility follow:

January 10 – 16
Zombie Apocalypse – 400 Microsoft Points* (50% off)
The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai – 400 MSP (50% off)

January 17 – 23
Plants vs. Zombies – 800 MSP (33% off)

‘Zombie Dinosaur’ Comic?

Posted By on January 7, 2011

Truly we’re reaching a point where absolutely anything is a target for the X + Zombies creative approach. Now it’s apparently Jurassic Park’s turn:

I love AMC’s gritty TV-adaptation of The Walking Dead, and the only way it could be better would be if they added zombie dinosaurs. That isn’t going to happen, but, fortunately for those of us who would like to see undead theropods stomping around the place, young artist Martin Kevil has been working on his own zombie dinosaur horror story called “Reawakening.”

According to the website, the story is about a sleepy Illinois suburb thrown into chaos when zombie dinosaurs escape from a local research facility.

Unfortunately the Smithsonian blogger couldn’t resist taking a gratuitiously cheap shot at Zombies on his own initiative:

No word yet on whether the dinosaurs will shamble around groaning “BRRRrraaaIINnNS…,” as per tradition, or whether that will have to be translated from their roars and grunts

Meanwhile, the site of the comic in question doesn’t do the comic any favors from a Zombie Friendly perspective. Zombie dinosaurs are depicted with the expected gore and horror, while kept on a separate page from the ‘characters’. Once again, Zombies don’t merit consideration as characters in a work of fiction.

As for the premise itself, I’m not sure how Zombie dinosaurs are any scarier or more menacing than regular ones. I mean, the comic has a lot of very large carnivores. Does it really make a difference to you whether the lumbering reptilian behemoth with six-inch fangs trying to tear your arms off is a Zombie?

If so I think your priorities are a bit skewed.

Sort of like a comic about Zombie dinosaurs, actually.

(A bonus question: the dinosaurs are actually, according to the comic’s site, genetically constructed creatures that merely look like dinosaurs. Which makes me wonder about the title, ‘Reawakening’. If they’re not actually ancient creatures but test-tube lizards, when were they asleep, and how does being created count as waking up?)

Offensive Video Shows How to ‘Zombie Proof’ a Car

Posted By on January 6, 2011

Mighty Car Mods out of Australia have put out a video detailing how to armor and equip a car to combat the Undead so that crazy Aussie survivalists can live out their paranoid delusions of the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ in style:

The basic premise here is just patently insulting. Why would you need to make a car ‘Zombie Proof’? Oh, I see, it’s because in the absence of civilization if you don’t like someone, it’s ok to use a motor vehicle to inflict violence upon them… at least, if they lack a heartbeat.

Riiiiiight. What a load of Living-Supremacist nonsense. Hey, car-mod dudes? Maybe you wouldn’t have to worry about fights with the Differently Animated if you didn’t tool around in a black armored SUV popping out of the roof hatch, menacing every Zombie you see with a shotgun.

What is with the obsession with armored vehicles and post-apocalyptic survival anyway? Is it all just little boys who grew up watching Mad Max and now want to have a cool car with armored plating and barricaded windows, but combined with their latest daydream/hobby, Anti-Undead violence? It was even pointed out in Night of the Living Dead (the remake I believe) that it doesn’t take that much effort to flip a car, so putting some lightweight screens on a small SUV won’t help if you tick off an angry (and in this case, completely justified) group of Zombie individuals to tip over your tricked-out toy.

Another small nitpick is that a katana is really *not* a good choice for a survivalist weapon, since they have a very hard, sharp but brittle edge, and once damaged are very difficult to repair, as well as requiring considerable upkeep in the meantime.

I probably shouldn’t be pointing this out but I’m a stickler for facts. It just goes to show that Anti-Zombie types are often misinformed on a variety of topics, not just Living-Undead relations.

Me, I long for a day when we see a car show detail how to modify a vehicle to be more Zombie Friendly. Paint it green for solidarity, modify the interior so it’s easier to party with your Undead friends on a road trip, that sort of thing. Really, since Zombies are people too, a car is basically a car, but the thought and the inclusiveness would be a great change of pace.

(h/t to ZER Customs)

Also Out of Japan: “Big Tits Zombie” goes to the UK – in Old-School 3D

Posted By on January 6, 2011

After hearing the good news about the legal streaming of ‘Kore wa Zombie desu ka?’ being streamed to much of the world via Crunchyroll, it’s a bit of a let-down to hear about an ultra-trashy Zombie exploitation picture from Japan going international as well:

Terracotta Distribution will soon be putting Takao Nakano’s Japanese cult horror picture on screens in the UK and have just released a new trailer to draw attention to star Sola Aoi’s assets.

Oh brother. “Big Tits Zombie” is seriously getting a theatrical release in the UK. In, and I quote, ‘Tittylicious 3D’. (You can see a trailer at the link above)

I think I need a stiff drink….

…hmm…

Ok, I’m back.

I have to wonder why Anti-Zombie media out of Japan seems so sexualized relative to the United States or Europe. Does it just sell better that way? Or is this some kind of.. weird.. Anti-Zombie fetish thing?

*shudder*

Uggh. I think I need to go rinse out my brain with bleach. Or tequila.

A very sarcastic ‘thanks’ to Zombie Universe for pointing this out to me.

‘Kore wa Zombie desu ka?’ to be Simulcast on Crunchyroll

Posted By on January 6, 2011

I guess this announcement, which hopefully lays the groundwork for a DVD release here in the US, means I have to get the ZRC a Crunchyroll account:

Crunchryoll has announced their first of three simulcast series today with Kore wa Zombie desu ka? which translates so very easy to “Are you a zombie?” which boggles why they aren’t translating it. The new series will run for twelve episodes from Kadokawa Pictures Inc. between January 10, 2011 to March 28, 2011. The series will simulcast at 1 PM ET on Mondays in these regions: North and South America, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, the Middle East, Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Brazil and Portugal and for subscription-based streaming in the United Kingdom and Ireland

Hooray, I get to evaluate it! I think I can use Playon to stream it to our TV too. Regardless, thanks to the magic of Cross-Pacific electronic publishing, we’ll get to see if Japan can put out a show that’s Zombie Friendly for a change, and almost in real time!

Who knows, maybe this is the first step in a cultural re-evaluation of the way that Japan treats the Differently Animated. We can only hope.