Posted By John Sears on January 5, 2011

A graphic up at GraphMeme illustrates the purported similarities between Zombies and Supermodels in such a way as to be defamatory to both:

see more Funny Graphs

See? They’re both ‘skeletal’, but the Zombie wants to eat your face and suffers from ‘everlasting death’, har-har.

As opposed to what? Temporary death, Buffy the Vampire Slayer style? Moderate-to-long-term death? Death for tax purposes?

Needless to say, this is very offensive to Zombies. One, the stereotypes about them are untrue, and two? Zombies aren’t generally hopped up on pills selling clothes nobody needs to rich people with more money than sense.

That should clear it up, which only leaves the ZRC asking why a Zombie, if they wanted to (for reasons that escape me, but money might be at the top of the list), could not be a supermodel? I mean, if it’s so ‘hard’ to tell the difference to start with.

The answer, obviously, is prejudice. Rank, ugly prejudice. If a Zombie wants to debase themselves in the world of high fashion, they should be allowed, and the absence of any openly Zombile supermodels speaks volumes about the bigotry of the otherwise ‘sell anything to anyone’ clothing-industrial complex.

For shame.

(A tip of the hat to Michelle Hartz and Zombie Universe for informing me about this one)

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Humor, The Internet

Posted By John Sears on January 5, 2011

This story is so outrageous that it can be hard to believe it’s real, but it apparently is.

A man by the name of Paul Waggoner sold his business and went to Haiti in the aftermath of its tragic earthquake last year to help with the relief efforts. After a subsequent aftershock, the hospital he was assisting at was deluged with patients, one of whom, a small boy, died. His father, lacking money for a funeral, allowed the hospital to dispose of the body, and all seemed normal, until the grieving relative came back and accused Waggoner of, amongst other things, turning his son into a Zombie:

An American man that was held in a Haitian prison under investigation for turning a man’s son into a zombie, has been freed and returned to the United States.

…

According to Waggoner, the father, Philistin, who had brought his son, Keevins, didn’t have money for a funeral, and he asked the hospital to take care of the boy’s body. Without a refrigerated room, the hospital incinerates the deceased after about 12 hours.

Waggoner said that even though there was a death certificate authenticated by the hospital, the father came back the following day and accused Waggoner of harboring the child, harvesting his organs, and keeping him in a secret place.

When Philistin first filed his case, a Haitian judge looked at the evidence and dismissed the charges. “It was completely taken care of the first time,” said Waggoner.

Waggoner left the country fearing retribution from the from Philistin, but returned soon after. Philistin had taken his case to court again, and a judge unaware of another judge having already dismissed the charges, decided to open a three-month investigation into the allegations. Haitian law allows defendants to be imprisoned without charge during investigations.

Waggoner was eventually freed and has since sensibly left the country, though he wants to return to help at some point in the future. In all my years working for Zombie Rights, however, I have never heard of persecution quite like this. A man, here in the 21st century, held without trial on the mere *suspicion* of having reanimated a human being? Just the accusation of helping in the revival of a Differently Animated individual is enough to get yourself thrown in a cell?

Shocking and appalling; truly a civil rights outrage for our age. Why, I find myself wondering, is it even a crime to help create a Zombie at all? Why should the state prohibit all good-natured necromancers or voodoo practitioners from creating Zombies? What business is it of a government to issue a blanket proclamation and prohibit the birth of an entire class of people?

The prejudice here, the institutionalized hate and rancor against the Undead, is truly tragic. Why any country, let alone one with such a storied history with the Differently Animated (though far from an untroubled one) would institute such a vicious state of super-apartheid against Zombiekind is completely beyond me.

What’s next, I wonder. Will Haiti prohibit specific races of ‘undesirable’ Living people from being created within its borders? Would that finally stir the international community to action?

Consider this a ZRC travel advisory for Haiti: it is simply not safe, nor is it wise, for Zombies or their allies to travel to the country for any reason at the current time.

Category: Zombie Media, ZRC News | 3 Comments »
Tags: Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on January 4, 2011

This article from The Observer chronicles the quest by two French photojournalists to explore a real post-apocalyptic landscape in this era where we as a society constantly dramatize the fake apocalypses and blame them on Zombies.

Of course, here the ruin of an entire city and way of life was not caused by the Differently Animated (when is it ever?) but by economic decline and political abandonment:

In downtown Detroit, the streets are lined with abandoned hotels and swimming pools, ruined movie houses and schools, all evidence of the motor city’s painful decline. The photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture what remains of a once-great city – and hint at the wider story of post-industrial America

…

Cumulatively, the photographs are a powerful and disturbing testament to the glory and the destructive cost of American capitalism: the centre of a once-thriving metropolis in the most powerful nation on earth has become a ghost town of decaying buildings and streets. There is a formal beauty here too, though, reminiscent of Robert Polidori’s images of post-hurricane Katrina New Orleans. “It seems like Detroit has just been left to die,” says Marchand, “Many times we would enter huge art deco buildings with once-beautiful chandeliers, ornate columns and extraordinary frescoes, and everything was crumbling and covered in dust, and the sense that you had entered a lost world was almost overwhelming. In a very real way, Detroit is a lost world – or at least a lost city where the magnificence of its past is everywhere evident.”

The pictures, some of which you can see in the Observer’s online gallery, are devastating and eerie.

Yet, you know what you don’t see in any of these pictures? Zombies. Why is that? Because Zombies didn’t destroy this particular slice of American society. Contrary to the assertions of your Romeros and your Russos and your Boyles and Snyders, the real threats that can leave our sophisticated modern society a vacant, haunted shell of its former self aren’t the Differently Animated, they’re things like racial tension, trade deficits and shifting technologies and workforces.

But that’s not the story you get in the American press, which prefers to focus on demonizing Zombies and raving about The Walking Dead, rather than looking hard into the mirror and exploring the stark beauty of a real post-apocalypse in Detroit for its deeper meaning.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Journamalism, Mainstream Media

Posted By John Sears on January 4, 2011

Once again our frenemies over at Zombie Universe directed us via the Facebooks to this particular innovation in merchandise: Zombie temporary tattoos.

Unfortunately, as the product description alludes, these tattoos indulge in the old ‘brain-eating’ stereotyping:

You have love for the pale-skinned undead, so why not share it with the world? Temporary tattoo book takes the classic anchors, hearts and horseshoes and gives ‘em a brain-eating twist.

*sigh*

Yes, people DO have love for Zombies, but unfortunately, that love is tainted with these nasty stereotypes and fixations on minor dietary issues. So some Zombies need, yes, need, not want, to ingest small amounts of human neural material from time to time. I mean, come on; people donate their bodies to science all the time. Why can’t we get a few to donate them to the Differently Animated too?

After all, I think we here at the ZRC can agree with Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey Channing-Wells at Skin-Horse: Zombies ARE Science.

So let’s try to focus less on the brain-eating thing. It’s just rude to point out a person’s medical issues in such an insulting manner.

And also, think about donating your body to Science, and Zombies, when you die. Assuming of course you yourself don’t come back, in which case, drop us a line, we’d love to help out.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Zombie Products

Posted By John Sears on January 4, 2011

Holy Taco brings us this selection of photos of various Zombie girls/women, though I suspect some of them are Living people in disguise (not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that), which makes us here at the ZRC ponder the issue of Zombie Exploitation just a bit. I can’t say I care for the editorial commentary though:

Zombies are pretty awesome, and so are the ladies. Put them together and it’s a weird kind of awesome that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable.

It isn’t ‘weird’ at all, sir. If you feel uncomfortable with the existence of Zombie women on film, merely walking about in public, perhaps that indicates something about yourself that you need to deal with.

Sensitivity training perhaps?

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Zombie Art

Posted By John Sears on January 3, 2011

Apparently there’s a new plugin for Firefox/Thunderbird to help solve the pesky problem of typing odd characters not found in your native language’s character set:

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to write a special character that does not exist in your native language? Maybe it was an ü and you were corresponding with Herr Müller from Germany, or Søren from Denmark. Many European countries have special characters in their languages that others do not have. That’s a problem as it is then not that easy to write a character unique to that language in Firefox or Thunderbird.

…

Zombie Keys for Firefox and Thunderbird offers an elegant alternative. The add-on adds a number of keyboard shortcuts to the program it is installed in. These shortcuts are used to write the foreign language special characters. Shortcuts have been reduced to a minimum by adding multiple characters to one shortcut.

This could be a real lifesaver for those who correspond regularly with one random person in a faraway land, and could be a real speed improvement over character mapping; still, we’re a bit puzzled here at the ZRC as to what this has to do with Zombies.

Do Zombies write more emails on average to people overseas? Do they hate to hunt and peck in Character Mapper even more than Living people?

Whatever the baffling reason, as I’ve said before, until we can drop the mindless and inaccurate pejorative uses of the term ‘Zombie’ (like ‘Zombie Bank’ or ‘Zombie Idea’), I guess it’s nice to at least occasionally get the inexplicably positive uses too.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Don't Use the Zed Word

Posted By John Sears on January 3, 2011

A hilariously tongue-in-cheek sendup of your various survivalist guides for the mythical ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ was published recently by The Weekly World News, no doubt in an attempt to correct the record and help in the battle against the vicious and of course internally inconsistent and contradictory stereotypes against the Differently Animated:

Worried about Zombies coming into your house? Here are 10 simple ways to stay safe!

…

Tall Fences: Building a tall smooth surfaced fence will prevent zombies from entering your property. Muscle tissue deteriorates in the transformation process rendering zombies incapable of scaling walls.

…

Well water vs. public water: Have a well on your property, in the event of a zombie outbreak you cannot rely on public water supply. The workers at your local water treatment facility might be zombies and everyone knows that zombies have absolutely no work ethic.

…

If you can’t beat them, join them: You might end up eating your first born but at least you won’t have to pay for their college tuition.

Hehe. Much like in the movies, one minute they’re just mindless shamblers, the next, as the plot requires, they become as cunning as need be to pose a threat, or, in this case, operate a complex water treatment facility (though they choose not to, perhaps as an act of nonviolent resistance or a collective bargaining strategy).

Good show for highlighting the inherently hilarious prospect that Zombies, who we should all know by now have no such plans, will overthrow Living civilization and then lurch around our ruined cities. The Weekly World News, bringing you Swiftian satire to illuminate the truth via hilarious lies and farce.

(To see the rest of their handy ‘tips’ for making it through the apocalypse that will never come, head on over to their site and read the whole thing. It should give you a chuckle.)

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Journamalism, Zombie Fiction

Posted By John Sears on January 2, 2011

Oh, we see how it is, Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost, and the blatant double standard is NOT appreciated:

Reuniting once more, Pegg and Frost play two sci-fi/comic nerds on their way to Area 51 where they hope their adventure will turn up some evidence of alien life. Unfortunately for them, it does and it’s name is Paul. Like a hyperactive E.T., Paul is a crude, smart-mouth lifeform whose escaped from custody and hitched a ride with the duo in an attempt to get back home.

Get it? When it’s time to ‘parody’ the horror genre, they indulge in all its worst demagoguery against the Differently Animated and produce a virtual slaughterhouse of Undead massacre after massacre, interspersed with Queen and British humor, but when it’s time to make a sci-fi movie the Alien gets a free ride and a sympathetic ear. Zombies get ‘Shaun of the Dead’, but aliens get a road trip movie?!

It’s not just hypocrisy, it’s monstrously unfair. Apparently Simon Pegg and Nick Frost would rather have little grey illegal immigrants running around crashing their ships into our planet than even try to tolerate, let alone accept, native Earth people who just happen to have a slightly different metabolic arrangement than themselves.

What incredible bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Is this just a matter of skin color? What shade of grey do you have to be, precisely, to ‘earn’ their sympathy I wonder?

You can see the double standard on full display in the following trailer:

Thanks to Strange Kids Club for pointing this one out to the ZRC.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Euro-zom, Movies, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on January 2, 2011

This review from Wired of a new card game featuring Zombies makes it sound quite interesting:

Overview: Zombie Ninja Pirates is a bizarre little card game in which you try to become zombies, ninjas, pirates and mad scientists while collecting objects that will award you points. It’s published by Gozer Games, a small game company that recently completed a successful Kickstarter campaign for their next game, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Fairies.

Yes, that’s right, one way to play the game is to try and become a Zombie, voluntarily. Zombification for the Win, as it were.

Of course you’re also free to become other things, like Ninjas or pirates, but honestly, that sounds far less entertaining.

On the whole, Wired makes it sound like the game has both Zombie Rights potential and a few problematic gameplay elements. We can’t judge the Zombie Friendliness second-hand, as Undead Equality is clearly not a priority for Wired’s reviewer (I wonder why). It might come down in the end to the flavor text and artwork on the cards. Still, letting players opt to become a Zombie as a proactive strategy to score points and win a game, instead of merely gunning down virtual Zombies ala just about anything from Capcom, or fighting the Undead like in many tabletop games?

Very promising indeed.

Category: Zombie Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Zombie Gaming

Posted By John Sears on January 2, 2011

At least, that seems to be the theme of new book ‘Married with Zombies’ by Jesse Petersen:

Sarah and David have hit a rut. They fight all the time; neither enjoys the other’s company; and the most trivial of issues sets their teeth to grinding. After six tortuous months of couples’ counseling, the pair has just about reached the end of its rope.

But then something wonderful happens: the couple’s therapist gets eaten. And I mean cannibal-style. That’s right, folks. The proverbial zombie apocalypse has struck again. Only this time around it’s testing more than the mere fabric of our society. It’s going after the very bonds of marriage.

Not to worry though; the plucky, typical couple soon finds that the Zombie Apocalypse helps bring them back together, rah-rah, they have to work together to survive, etc.

Once again we have a ‘Zombie’ story that is all about the Living people. I wonder if any of these authors ever realize the very unfortunate implications of this premise. Isn’t it just a tad like those action movies where the only people who matter are Americans, even as some scenic foreign locale blows up in fiery carnage around them, and some muscley all-American antihero chomps on a cigar between gun battles?

Feh. Get back to me when someone writes a book about a Zombie’s marriage – oh wait, Dead Eyes Open did just that, and several years ago too.

I think I’ll re-read that if I want to see a work deal with marriage and the Differently Animated, rather than marriage and a Zombie-like plot substitute.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Books