Posted By John Sears on May 8, 2012

In a writeup about a new ‘Walking Dead’ videogame, the NYT talks about putting ‘guilt’ back in killing Zombies.

Sadly, tragically, that might pass for good Zombie press, at least from the mainstream media:

But what zombies! Taking an ax to the reanimated corpse of a character’s brother in the streets of Macon, or deciding whether to give a gun to a woman who was bitten and now wants to kill herself before she is reborn — these moments have more sadness and subtlety in them than other games muster in 40 hours. The creatures in The Walking Dead are designed to be killed by your hand, but — for once — you’re not quite meant to have fun doing it.

Sigh. It really doesn’t sound like the reviewer had trouble finding the ‘fun’ though, does it?

Look, “CHRIS SUELLENTROP”, of the NYT. Let’s talk a little, shall we?

The Zombie Rights Campaign has been trying to shame people into thinking about Zombie Rights, such as, say, the right not to get shot, for three years now. We think it’s very important. We’re glad that you’re at least willing to entertain the idea now.

However, you might want to actually explore those feelings with a bit more sensitivity, because your article? It does not come off as Zombie Friendly, or even Zombie Tolerant.

As for Zombies being the ‘new Nazis’, that’s more than a bit misleading. Sure, Nazi Zombies in videogames are relatively recent, but they’ve been in movies for decades. ‘Zombie Lake’, ‘Hard Rock Zombies’, etc. Arguably Nazi Zombie movies go all the way back to ‘King of the Zombies’, in 1941.

As you can see, this is a very long-running and hurtful slander-by-association, and one we’d like to dispel. Zombies are not, by and large, Nazis, and Nazis, by and large, were not Zombies. It’s a fantasy cooked up by a handful of filmmakers and videogame programmers, with no historical basis in fact.

Werewolves get a bit of the same treatment, it must be said.

Still… at least there’s a seed of potential here.

We’ll keep an eye out for future, and hopefully even better, coverage of Zombie media in the New York Times.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Journamalism, Mainstream Media, Movies, Videogames

Posted By John Sears on May 8, 2012

Finally some good news about Zombies in the media:

BBC Drama Production has secured four new drama commissions: Frankie, The Musketeers and The Lady Vanishes for BBC One and and In The Flesh for BBC Three.

…

In The Flesh is a three-part event drama, the first TV commission for Dominic Mitchell. It was developed by the BBC Drama Production team in Salford and discovered through Northern Voices, a BBC Writersroom competition.

Mitchell’s script begins after the Zombie Uprising has been quelled by the Human Volunteer Force and life is starting to return to normal. Any surviving zombies have been captured, medicated, held in an NHS holding facility in Norfolk and are being slowly re-integrated back into society, with the help of contact lenses and cover up mousse.

Now, I’m not happy right off the bat with the ‘Zombie Uprising’ part. Though at least they’re not saying ‘Apocalypse’, they frame it (rightly) as a political struggle (an unfortunate one, of course).

And hey! Reintegration into society. Perhaps via a Truth and Reconciliation Committee? Those work pretty well.

This is indeed rare territory for a Zombie drama to cover. Most in the media assume, wrongly of course, that the way to deal with a sudden influx of the Undead is to fortify a nearby structure and start fighting amongst themselves until the Living people all get eaten.

Don’t ask us why. We just watch the movies/play the games/read the comics/and the novels.

There have been exceptions. The outstanding ‘Dead Eyes Open’ dealt well with Zombie political struggle, and ‘Breathers’, while highly imperfect, also touched on Undead integration. ‘Fido’ was also a worthy mention on this topic.

I’ve heard very good things about ‘American Zombie’ too.

So, to recap: the BBC is going to give Zombies a chance at living a normal Unlife, at least on BBC Three.

Good show!

Story brought to us by one of our trusted UK contacts.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Euro-zom, Television

Posted By John Sears on May 7, 2012

We have another case here, I’m afraid, of the Anti-Zombie media putting a real negative spin on a fun Zombie event:

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (CBS) — Prague’s historic city centre was taken over by hundreds of the walking dead in the annual festival the Zombie Walk on Saturday.

It’s the fifth year for the event with participants making their way to the historical city’s centre.

People from all over the country dressed up as the scary creatures, sporting red paint to mimic blood, false teeth and eyes, with one participant seen with a needle through her tongue.

‘Scary’? Oh come now. Zombies aren’t all scary, CBS! Some are quite lovable really.

And that ‘needle through her tongue’? It’s called a piercing, and I’ve seen lots of Living people with them.

Not saying that piercing your tongue is hugely commonplace, and it’s surely more involved than an ear piercing, but come on, CBS. Pierced tongue does not equal Zombie.

Fortunately there seems to be a happy ending for this Prague event:

The walk finished at the Rudolfinum Music Hall with many zombies partying the night away into the early hours.

That’s lovely, we mean it. Congrats, Prague, from The Zombie Rights Campaign.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Euro-zom, Journamalism, Mainstream Media, Zombie Public Event

Posted By John Sears on May 7, 2012

I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this one though. (image at link)

Sure, the whole ‘biting’ thing is pretty fraught for Zombies, but on the other hand, it is just an apple.

The art director’s been known to bite into a few apples in her time, and she’s alive.

Snow White the Zombie? There are possibilities here. I think we’ll reserve judgment for now.

Thanks to BuyZombie for the tip.

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

Posted By John Sears on May 5, 2012

You can’t say these Living Supremacists don’t know their audience:

“Zombies are coming…Where’s your shotgun?” was posted on the official Call of Duty: Black Ops II Facebook page. The announcement comes only days after the launch of the official website and the first revealed trailer for the upcoming sequel that will release for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on November 13, 2012.

..

“With Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the team is crafting an experience that Call of Duty fans have never seen before,” said Mark Lamia, Studio Head for Treyarch. “We are challenging assumptions on every front, with the single player campaign, Zombies and multiplayer. In the campaign, we are creating a thought-provoking story that introduces branching storylines and meaningful choices that impact the narrative. Running in the multiplayer engine for the first time, Zombies gives players a bigger and more diverse set of gameplay experiences, as well as entirely new ways to wage war with the undead.

Wage war on the Undead? More like slaughter virtual Undead sterotypes while chomping on Doritos. I don’t know what’s worse, the indoctrination or the delusions of heroism.

Anyway, ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops II’ comes out this fall.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on May 5, 2012

Sigh. The mainstream press really won’t let up with this ‘call anything we don’t like or find creepy a Zombie’ routine.

Case in point, the ‘Zombie ant’ saga continues as researchers find that the previous, allegedly ‘Zombie’ making fungus is itself parasitized by another fungus:

For the first time, researchers have discovered how an ant colony can survive an onslaught of zombie-fungus, also known as Ophiocordyceps, a behavior altering, deadly parasite.

…

In their new study, David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State and his team describe a hyperparasitic fungus – that is, a parasitic fungus that exploits another parasitic fungus – that helps ants to ward off a zombie epidemic.

“In a case where biology is stranger than fiction, the parasite of the zombie-ant fungus is itself a fungus,” Hughes said in a statement.

As you can see, this negative, Anti-Zombie framing even pervades the scientific communtiy, to the point where even an entomologist (who should know the difference between conventional biological life and Zombies, we think) describes a living fungus, and a living ant, as somehow ‘Zombie’.

Yikes.

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

Posted By John Sears on May 3, 2012

One of the biggest stories over the weekend that I wanted to cover in more detail was the launch of a major fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund… one predicated on outdated Anti-Zombie stereotypes.

It gets worse: the Anti-Zombie stereotypes in question were devised by Neil Gaiman, noted author and previously-suspected Anti-Zombie provocateur.

It gets worse still: the contest is to design the art for a T-shirt to go along with the flagrantly Anti-Zombie contest message, this promoting the creation of countless pieces of Anti-Zombie art across the web by hopeful, and sadly easily led, artists.

Yes, this is indeed a dark day for Zombie Rights online:

Alien invasions are nothing new, but when Neil Gaiman is attached, it’s definitely something to keep an eye out for. Threadless and The CBLDF team up to offer a chance to cement yourself in T-shirt history by designing a shirt for THE DAY THE SAUCERS CAME.
For those Gaiman enthusiasts, this is a great way to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as well as stretch those creative fingers. To make this competition even more astounding, if you win, your work will stand by the designs of Ben Templesmith, Brandon Graham, and John Cassaday.

The script in question for the user-designed shirts, reproduced here for critical analysis, is offensive and, unexpectedly from Mr. Gaiman, derivative, simply rehashing the old, tired stereotypes of Zombiism (and its frequent mid-20th century intersection with alien invasion worries):

Front:
That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed to find what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn’t notice it because

Back:
That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because

What did Zombies ever do to you, Mr. Gaiman? Why is the largely peaceful, law-abiding Undead Community the target of your constant jibes? Why pick on Zombies every time you have an otherwise laudable goal, effort, or organization to promote?

Is it just, dare we say it, because picking on Zombies is *easy*? That expectations are low and easily met in the Anti-Zombie target audience?

Are you phoning it in, Mr. Gaiman?

Of course we cannot single out merely Mr. Gaiman for opprobrium here. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, already the stalwart defender of an industry rife with Living Supremacism, does itself no favors here by indulging in same. Nor does Threadless, which is doing the actual nuts and bolts of the shirt printing side of this sorry spectacle. And of course we cannot forget the major contributing artists Ben Templesmith, Brandon Graham, and John Cassaday, all of whom decided to lend their talent and names to this effort.

It’s a true rogue’s gallery for the Zombie Rights Movement. Shame on all of you, sirs-and-t-shirt-printing-entities. Shame on each and every last one of you.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Clothing, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on May 2, 2012

Sorry about the unexplained absence guys – had a hard drive blow on the ZRC laptop and it took a couple of days to get the spare part.

Which, I might add, is working beautifully so far.

Not that the ZRC was completely idle while the blog was quiet! We’ve been working on convention appearances, film screenings and the like, and doing planning for the glorious Zombie March in Chicago in a few scant weeks!

So exciting. I will need many, many picket signs.

Category: ZRC News | 2 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By John Sears on April 27, 2012

Our friends at the Horror Society alerted us to a fundraiser for upcoming, and clearly Anti-Zombie, project ‘Zombeach’:

WHAT IS THIS?
This is our newest project, “Zombeach”. It is a new kind of zombie apocalypse story. With the Jersey Shore giving the area a bad rap we are aiming to bring the focus back to the ‘Horror Capitol’ New Jersey, and not the Guido New Jersey.
The story is set in the off season, where only the locals remain to stick out the winter months next door to the Atlantic Ocean. But what happens when they get new neighbors and they are more violent and hungry for meat than a drunk guido on Independence Day? Guess you’ll have to watch and find out.

Don’t think we’re going to fall into the politics of division and bash ‘guidos’ to defend Zombies, ‘Zombeach’. The ZRC is more than willing to say that ‘guidos’ are people too.

But when Zombeach, as the title of this post states, then directly compare Zombies to Snooki? That’s a low blow, and going way too far.

We are very offended on behalf of the Zombies.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Movies, Social Justice, The Internet

Posted By John Sears on April 27, 2012

When will the Disaster-Preparedness-Industrial-Complex realize it isn’t cool to defame Zombies to promote being ready for disasters?

SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. –
What would happen if there was an outbreak of smallpox, flu or anthrax?

The response would be the same even if zombies attacked.

More than two dozen students at the University of Rhode Island ran a mock dispensing clinic, handing out anti-viral medication during a zombie apocalypse.

But instead of medication, it was Sour Patch Kids and Gummy Bears.

I literally cannot fathom the reasoning here! You cannot use ‘medication’ to rid yourself of a minority group you don’t like! That is NOT COOL!

Outrageous. Truly. When you think about it, the University of Rhode Island, or at least their pharmacy program, is promoting a potential genocide against the Undead.. using Gummy Bears.

The Zombie Rights Campaign condemns this activity in the strongest possible terms. For shame, University of Rhode Island, and special condemnation and shame for Professor Jef Bratberg, who seems to be the ringleader in this gruesome little circus.

For shame.

For more information see this video:

Category: Zombie Media | 5 Comments »
Tags: Academia, Anti-Zombie Public Event, Mainstream Media, Social Justice