Posted By John Sears on August 9, 2012

We’re not ones to shy away from the big issues here at The Zombie Rights Campaign. Mummies? We back them. Deadites? We’re there for them.

The upcoming Flashback Weekend, starting tomorrow in Chicago, presented us with a unique opportunity and quandry, however. There’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime sort of event, a 30th Anniversary Screening of horror classic ‘The Thing’, presented by John Carpenter himself.

Thus my quandary: should we stand up for Things?

Things aren’t Zombies, clearly. And while they may be assembled from reanimated corpses, it’s pretty clear they’re alive, in a biological sense. No Undeath or mysticism. But.. they’re so oppressed!

So, side-project time. The ZRC, for one weekend anyway, will also be the TRC: Thing Rights Campaign.

We have a page and a pamphlet up to educate the public, a hotel room booked and tickets purchased. Tomorrow we shall represent the interests of our shapeshifting alien friends in the one place on Earth where those interests most need defending (outside, perhaps, of Area 51).

We’ll let you know how that goes.

Category: Zombie Media, ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Movies, Public Appearance, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on August 9, 2012

I think that no one thing shows the Anti-Zombie bias of the press quite as vividly as their penchant for labeling any negative phenomenon ‘Zombie’ of late.

Case in point, and a new one on the ZRC: ‘Zombie Debt Collections’, referring to debt being collected, seemingly erroneously, on behalf of a company that doesn’t exist anymore:

Talk about Red Tape: Consumers across the country say they are being harassed into paying bills they don’t owe to a company that no longer exists. And it’s not the first time. Like a monster in a bad horror flick, every time this Hollywood Video debt collection controversy seems to be killed, it keeps coming back to life.

…

When Hollywood Video and its parent, Movie Gallery, went out of business in 2010 and declared bankruptcy, they had only one real asset: unpaid fees. About 3 million U.S. residents owed money to the firm — a lot of money — nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, according to the Rhode Island attorney general’s office. But attempts to collect that money on behalf of Hollywood Video’s creditors have become a series of bad horror flicks to former customers, who claim they are being repeatedly harassed by debt collectors waving bills the consumers don’t owe. And now, an NBC News investigation of 500 complaints filed against one of those firms in the past 90 days — Universal Fidelity — shows that consumers accuse the company of everything from bullying to threatening to ruin their credit, despite promises to all 50 state attorneys general that it would never do so./blockquote>

Essentially, the situation boils down to: Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery went out of business, and their creditors are trying to collect on unpaid DVD rental fees and such. Naturally, they’re using debt collection firms to do so. Naturally, given the sleazy, seedy nature of that industry, customers are being treated badly. Previous agreements with all 50 states to be less sleazy are being ignored.

In other words, another day in the leg-breaking business. Why, precisely, is this related to Zombies? Because a company ‘died’, ie, went bankrupt? Well, that happened repeatedly to Movie Gallery/Hollywood Video, apparently. So was it a ‘Zombie’ company when it had stores open AND when it closed down?

The term seems to lose all meaning, doesn’t it?

In reality, as ugly as this mess is, it just looks like another tangled web of debt in our financialized, struggling economy to me. No Zombies, maybe no actual debts, and very little collection going on.

Get back to the ZRC when actual Zombies are collecting debts.

Full disclosure: for a brief time in college I worked for a Movie Gallery in Bloomington, IN. The management was incompetent but most of the fellow employees were ok, and I quit under less than friendly terms. I honestly never gave the company a second thought until now, and it turns out they went under two years ago. How time flies.

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

Posted By John Sears on August 7, 2012

We’ve talked a lot about ParaNorman here on the ZRC blog, and I still feel that the final movie is shaping up to be pretty Anti-Zombie.

What with the protagonists fighting Zombies and all.

Still, sometimes there’s still a hint of Zombie Friendliness, or just plain tolerance. These Olympics themed ads are all right, especially the gymnast one:

Maybe I should be a little more optimistic about the movie? Guess we’ll want to catch it opening weekend if possible.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Advertising, Movies

Posted By John Sears on August 4, 2012

Friends, it seems that some additional incentive is needed to support the ‘Zombie Bohemia – The Series’ Kickstarter campaign.

Frankly I’m not sure why, but then I got to see the short film on the big screen so I’m a bit biased. Maybe people need a taste of what they’d be supporting?

Well fortunately for the internet-going public, such a sneak peek is now available, a vignette showcasing a bit of that eternal struggle of any starving artist: how to earn a little cash on the side.

We hope you’ll enjoy it.

See? The struggles of a Zombie Artist really are universal. Or at least, they will be, once the series gets made.

Hint hint.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Social Justice, The Internet, Zombie Art

Posted By John Sears on August 2, 2012

This is more of a ‘cool stuff for H.P. Lovecraft fans’ thing than a Zombie story per se; at least, I believe the (allegedly) ‘Evil’ Clergyman is more like a ghost than a Zombie.

Or maybe a time traveler.

Still, the movie might have gone with more of an Undead route and the Art Director’s a huge Lovecraft fan so we’ll stop in and check this out at Flashback Weekend after doing our Thing Rights protesting:

Not only has the lost anthology flick Pulsepounders that has never been seen before by ANYONE finally been located, but a restoration was recently completed and one of the installments from the film is set to have its world premiere on August 11th during Flashback.

Pulsepounders, created by Charles Band in 1987-1988 during the height of Empire Pictures, was comprised of several short films including Trancers: The Unseen Sequel, The Dungeonmaster Sequel and H.P. Lovecraft’s The Evil Clergyman, but the film never saw the light of day due to unforeseen circumstances. Band recently rediscovered the anthology and has spent the last year working on restoring all three films so that fans can finally have the opportunity to see them.

Which brings us to another good reason to monitor the film: Mr. Combs. He has a *very* spotty career when it comes to Zombie Rights on film.

Very spotty.

So it’s good to keep an eye on that one.

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

Posted By John Sears on August 2, 2012

We’ve come down with the cold to end all colds here at the ZRC Compound so it might be affecting my cognitive reasoning.

I grant that.

Still, I can’t see the point of this at ALL:

Better Run, Better Run! These Zombies are hungry and their ready to eat that stick family on the back of your car. Get a laugh out of all Zombie lovers in this funny Zombie Shirt featuring a hungry zombie eating a family. This shirt is printed in white on a black tee.

Baffling. I always thought the stick figures were supposed to represent your family, not some abstract race of two-dimensional Flatland-esque people. Isn’t that why they’re often customized with names and personal details?

Weird. I’m going to go ponder the strange twists of prejudice and take some cold meds.

Category: Zombie Media, ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Clothing

Posted By John Sears on July 30, 2012

You know, Zombies catch an awful lot of flack from the usual suspects in the press: stereotypes about brain-devouring, Living-slaughtering and a (supposed) lack of intelligence and humanity.

But, I’ll have you point out, they don’t go around picketing funerals, like the, ahem, people from the Westboro Baptist Church. Who’ve become justifiably infamous as, well, jerks. Picketing funerals will do that for you. Who, the world seemed to ask, would come out to represent basic human decency?

And thus it fell to Zombies to arrange a peaceful counterprotest of the latest attempt by the Westboro crowd to offend and outrage. Apparently it went quite well:

Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church showed up to picket at a Seattle-area military base last week, but were confronted with an unusual counter-protest: dozens of people dressed as zombies.

Eight members of the church, known for frequently picketing military funerals and other events as a protest against the progression of gay rights, found themselves confronted with the counter-protest while picketing outside of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Friday. The playful counter-protest was launched by Spanaway, Wash., resident Melissa Neace, who spread the word of her idea on Facebook.

Note how the mainstream press, however, wants to believe that when Zombies do good they’re all Living people in costume. Rarely do we hear such skepticism when Zombies are accused of misdeeds!

Ah well. Still a great idea and we’re happy to see Zombies coming out and shambling up for a good cause.

Category: Zombie Media, ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Journamalism, Mainstream Media, Social Justice, Zombies Doing Good

Posted By John Sears on July 28, 2012

The ZRC blog reported extensively on the arrest/persecution of UK Zombie Activists (or just those dressed as Zombies, minding their own business). In fact, our most recent Zombie of the Year was one of said unjustly detained activists, Hannah Eiseman-Renyard, who bravely fought against said injustices in court.

Tragically, and in our opinion inexplicably, the Zombie Activists recently lost their case:

Royal wedding protesters have lost their high court claim that they were the victims of unlawful searches and arrests in a ruling that endorses the pre-emptive arrest police tactic just before the Olympics.

The Metropolitan police were accused of “suppressing anti-monarchist sentiment” over arrests to prevent disruption when Prince William married Kate Middleton in April last year.

But two judges ruled on Wednesday that the police had acted within their powers and were not guilty of operating an unlawful policy.

The ruling would be laughable if it wasn’t so deadly serious, for UK citizens both Undead and Alive. Amongst other things, the judges ruled that it was justifiable to arrest people based on suspicion that they would disrupt the peace in future, a suspicion obviously (and erroneously) based on things like.. being a Zombie in public.

Perhaps worse still, and bizarrely, the judges stated that even if unlawful arrests had been conducted, say of law-abiding Zombies, that couldn’t be used as evidence of an illegal policy.

Crimes conducted and coordinated together, in other words, can’t be used as evidence of criminal conspiracy by the government. Even if you admit they are crimes, conducted and.. coordinated. Together. By the government.

What the heck? And they say Zombies are the ones in need of brains.

For a truly enlightening response to this codification of injustice against the Undead look no further than our own Zombie of the Year’s op-ed in the Guardian:

Fifteen of those arrested on the day for fictional breaches of the peace brought a judicial review over the police’s tactics. We believe their actions were illegal and the result of an unlawful policy. Our judicial review was rolled together with three others – two about raids on squats the day before and one about a minor arrested pre-emptively for criminal damage. (Evidence: two pens in his backpack. He was initially stopped because he had a megaphone.)

The evidence we heard over the five-day hearing swung from the absurd to the sinister: the Met’s barrister, Sam Grodzinski, used an article from the Sun as evidence. He admitted that the raids carried out on squats had an ulterior purpose – to search for Operation Brontide suspects – but argued this did not void the warrants. Commander Bob Broadhurst, then head of public order policing for the Met, stated that the “sole reason for the timing” of the raids was related to the royal wedding, but the Met insisted this did not make the warrants unlawful. In the case of the Ratstar squat they came with a warrant for stolen bike parts yet seized no bikes. They did, however, take all the toothbrushes in an apparent sweep for DNA. In the case of Grow Heathrow the police came with a warrant for paint bombs. They found none, but seemed more interested in ascertaining the identities of everyone on the site.

A more dystopian picture of society is hard to paint. Cops falsifying warrants, rounding up citizens based on alleged political differences, random sweeps of DNA for who-knows-what purposes. It’s not pretty. And this post-hoc legalization of obviously illegal behavior is even uglier.

Still, The Zombie Rights Campaign is very proud and humbled by the struggles of our Zombie of the Year in this case. Victory is never assured when striving for social justice, as we are well aware, and odds are often good that the forces *of* good will lose the fight.

But not the war. We have faith, and our stalwart Zombie of the Year isn’t giving up the fight:

We are looking into appealing the decision. Our court case was made up from a patchwork of legal precedents, and accepting Lord Justice Richards’ verdict would allow the police to add our experiences to their arsenal. What I experienced was wrong and I cannot let this judgment stand.

The Zombies are with you, Hannah.

Category: ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Euro-zom, Social Justice, Zombie of the Year 2011

Posted By John Sears on July 26, 2012

We mentioned the Zombie Rights March to be held at this year’s ComicCon, and it appears it was a great success. FEARnet’s reporter on the scene starts off from a very classic Anti-Zombie position but the earnestness, diversity and friendliness of the marchers makes a big impact, and the resulting piece illustrates beautifully why the ZRC strongly supports Zombie Walks in general:

Especially adorable is the Mother-Daughter Zombie family protesting. The video does help showcase the incredibly diverse Zombie Community, and we applaud this great day of outreach.

Update: Changed capitalization on FEARnet

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Journamalism, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on July 23, 2012

Time is an important thing to keep track of, and the ZRC would dearly love a good Zombie Clock, suitable for helping track our engagements to promote Undead Equality.

Sadly this isn’t it:

I’m not sure if I like this or not.

Don’t get me wrong. Visually it looks pretty damn cool. I’m just not sure if a zombie eating on a brain is what I want for a clock on my wall. Bookshelf ‘maybe’ but not a fan of it on my wall.

The ZRC finds it simply too heavily stereotyped, visuals aside! Why must we always focus on the alleged brain-eating? Why not the perseverance to overcome Death itself?

Sigh.

Maybe next time.

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