Posted By John Sears on January 5, 2012

Recently, we shipped the prestigious award for Zombie of the Year 2011 to our worthy recipient, Hannah Eiseman-Renyard, over in the hopefully-more-Zombie-Tolerant-soon United Kingdom.

Sadly, it arrived a bit banged up.

Thus the ZRC has set out to rectify our mistake and ship a new copy without bends, crumples, wrinkles or imperfections!

For the Zombies! And our pride as an e-merchant and online rights lobby!

Observe:

A new copy, signed and sealed, ready to go with extra cardstock as backing.

A folder to hold it in.

Pamphlets to accompany it on the long journey.

Bubble wrapped and taped…

Sealed in the box with Zombie Christmas cheer. Those are hippy-dippy organic candy canes I got at the Co-Op here in Madison. Real sugar, vegetable food colorings. Yum.

I then labeled the box all over…

Fighting the stereotypes even on our shipping containers..

Until the art director reminded me the Post Office doesn’t like that, so we had to reseal it in even more paper.

Now, before our greenie enviro-cred is lost forever, I have to point out that the bubble wrap and wrapping paper were salvaged from previous shipping needs and re-used, so no angry emails please! It is all for a good cause.

The cause of Zombie Rights, and also, making up for a poor shipping outcome.

Here’s hoping it finds its way safe and sound to the UK this time.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Zombie of the Year 2011

Posted By John Sears on January 1, 2012

Stories like this are what makes it all worthwhile for the ZRC:

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest gathering of zombies ever was held on October 30, 2010 when 4,093 participants gathered on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
But on October 15 of this year, more than 20,000 zombies descended on downtown Fort Myers for ZOMBICON 2011, unofficially shattering the world record.

…

In the meantime, other records were broken on the night of ZOMBICON, which were easier to prove. According to Eric Olsen, manager of the World Famous Cigar Bar, “In 15 years downtown, we had our best night ever.” Many other downtown bars and restaurants also reported record numbers. Gloria Bonventre, head of the Lee Memorial Blood Center, confirmed that 128 units of blood were donated, which have the potential of saving up to 256 lives.

This is more than three times the number from the previous year, a record for the most blood collected at a special event. And for the first time, the Renal Transplant Center and the “Be The Match” bone marrow registry recruited donors at the event. Also, a record 3,786 pounds of food was gathered for The Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida, the most ever collected at a nighttime event.

This. This right here is precisely the sort of fantastic, civic-minded, open-hearted (even if some of them aren’t beating) face-to-face social activism we at the Zombie Rights Campaign love to see. Creating an open and welcoming space for Zombies to interact with the Living while collecting food, blood and tissue donors as a gesture of goodwill and positive outreach? Can it get any better?

Hopefully this event, once it goes down in the record books, can help to put an end once and for all to the paranoid delusions of the Brooks/Kirkman/Zombie Apocalypse crowd, who are just *so sure* that any large gathering of the Undead will lead to certain doom.

In fact, as it so happens, it can lead to donated blood, food, and (presumably) Living people signing up to donate bone marrow if called upon to do so.

For the record, I am signed up for that very same registry; they’ve yet to ask me for any delicious bone juices, but I’ll let you know if it happens.

I’d love to see bone marrow registration become one of the big associated causes of the Zombie Rights Movement too. We do cancer research fundraising here at the ZRC, but bone marrow’s also a great idea.

Should try to cook something up for that.

In the meantime, many thanks and much praise to Fort Myers for this fantastic event and outing for the Zombie as well as Living Communities.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Zombie Public Event, Zombies Doing Good

Posted By John Sears on December 30, 2011

I’m not kidding with that title, folks:

Hollywood has come to Youngstown to shoot a movie in less than a week with hundreds of local actors, extras and production staff.

“The Zombinator,” an independent horror flick, is in production right now and uses Youngstown and surrounding communities as its backdrop.

…

Myers first came to Youngstown to shoot a fashion documentary, but decided the abandoned buildings and economically depressed area would be perfect for a zombie movie.

“Let’s do something in Youngstown to kind of bring a little hope to the town, bring a little positive energy. You know, this is a beautiful place, there’s beautiful backdrops, beautiful locations for movies, and do something for this town on their Christmas holidays,” Myers said.

Myers and crew are shooting the film in four and half days with no script and are using just a basic outline and directions.

To be fair, you might ASSUME that most Anti-Zombie films were shot without a script; after a while they do tend to blur together. Still, to come right out and admit that what your audiences want is aimless cinematic violence? Ouch. Crass, mercenary.. surprisingly honest..

I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much from a movie called ‘The Zombinator’.

PS: Bonus points for positioning the shooting of a divisive, violent pogrom against a disenfranchised community as some sort of benevolent social charity, just in time for Christmas. Good grief. Quite the contrast with all the actual good work the Differently Animated do in their communities every day.

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

Posted By John Sears on December 30, 2011

We’ve been following this one on the ZRC blog for a while, and at last, the dread time is upon us:

Microsoft and doublesix have announced that the Xbox 360 version of All Zombies Must Die! is now available via Xbox LIVE, priced 800 MP. The spiritual successor to Burn Zombie Burn! drops up to four players into the town of Deadhill, where they must blast their way through ranks of brain hungry monsters with a variety of weaponry while completing quests

Oh good, they have QUESTS, that makes it all better, right?

Wrong.

Just look at this trailer, which makes it pretty clear who the aggressors are in this game’s universe:

Yes, we just have to send thugs into Zombie towns to rough up the Undead. It’s not like Zombies have problems already!

Unbelievable, truly.

The makers of this, ahem, game have an offensive website you can view here for more info.

As for me, the rank prejudice here has irritated my sensitive brain, so I need to go find some aspirin or something.

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

Posted By John Sears on December 29, 2011

Once again we find a journalist using ‘Zombie’ as a casual, and remarkably poorly-informed, insult:

When OC-based Real Mex Restaurants, operator of Chevys, El Torrito, and Acapulco, filed for bankruptcy protection in October, it closed only 30 of its 156 locations. Sbarro, the Italian fast-food chain, shuttered just 31 of its 429 U.S. stores. This is why the chain restaurant business has been struggling: Too many operators and too little demand. It’s good news for customers because the restaurants, desperately trying to keep the cash flowing, are lowering their prices. But it’s also creating zombie restaurants, which can barely cover expenses.

In the old days, you might call describe this phenomenon, far more accurately, as putting something on ‘life support’. Where’s the ‘Zombie’ angle? By definition here, customers would see no dramatic change in these restaurants; indeed, the main criticism being made here is that there’s too MUCH sameness, too much continuity, not some abrupt transformation.

If anything these are the opposite of ‘Zombie’ restaurants; they’re Survivor restaurants, dragging themselves onward, one dreary, hopeless day at a time, with no real plan for a better life.

Also, please keep in mind there are actual, Zombie-themed restaurants out there; we talked about one of them here previously on the ZRC blog.

Some day we may even get a Zombie Friendly one.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Don't Use the Zed Word, Journamalism, Mainstream Media

Posted By John Sears on December 29, 2011

Look, I get that there’s a great deal of concern about physical fitness and exposing children to a potential love of the outdoors, I really do. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about getting that exposure for your spawn, and this? This is the wrong way.

This week, kids from the Portland metro area are learning important survival skills.

Lucy Holscher: “What you do is there’s like four or five zombies, you’re in a group with your partner, your job is to keep your partner safe.”

But this is not an actual zombie apocalypse. It’s a survival skills camp run by the non-profit Trackers Earth. April Baer visited the camp, and survived to file this report.

Yes, in the guise of providing kids with useful outdoors skills, this ‘Trackers Earth’ extremist group is spreading Living Supremacist prejudice and teaching children how to harm their Undead fellow man. Why? Who can say, really, why anyone would do such a horrible thing to children, to the next generation. Ignorance, perhaps. Or perhaps they’re just not very good people.

Yes, these Living Supremacists offer a full slate of programs to foment hatred, making it clear that they’re no ordinary, part-time Max Brooks fan group. No sir; these people are for real… and really, really dangerous.

Just look at the, ahem, ‘survival’ skills being taught:

Twelve year old Lucy Holscher says she learned a lot at camp Tuesday, like how to assemble a bag for disaster supplies like bandages, antiseptic, and tools for a fire.

“What was that kind of metal bar we used? Magnesium bar, yeah. If you take that and add a little spark to it it’ll set on fire.”

Handy thing when zombies attack in Oregon’s damp winter months.

Yes, teaching kids how to use ludicrously-volatile magnesium to start fires, no doubt preparing them for a career of Anti-Zombie arson. This is what parents want their kids to do to get some outdoor time?

Whatever happened to campfires and songs? Aren’t Zombie children welcome to explore the great outdoors in Oregon?

I guess not if Trackers Earth has anything to say about it. For shame.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Public Event, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on December 29, 2011

What does a roundup of new tech-lit books have to do with casual Zombie-bashing?

Why not ask Kara Swisher? She seems to be a fan of Anti-Zombie prejudice, dropping little gems like:

It’s funny that they, and also Hoffman, are using the hopelessly analog term “blueprint,” but I like the retro feel.
No surprise, Thiel’s posse is unhappy with the pace of innovation, presumably underwhelmed by “Plants vs. Zombies” compared to the internal combustion engine.

…

In any case, before the zombies arrive to steal them, get your brains ready to think big thoughts.

Yes, once again, Zombies are depicted as penniless, violent, brain-obsessed savages, apropos of nothing. Delightful!

This is the sort of thing that fills my inbox some days. Groan.

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

Posted By John Sears on December 26, 2011

We got forwarded this link on the ZRC Twitter over the holiday weekend, and naturally, we were disgusted:

Sample Lyrics:

Throwing a rock
Unloading my Glock
Hurling Molotovs
Nothing makes ‘em stop
Living in a land where everyone is dead
Gonna put this one last bullet right through my own head.

Yes, it’s a ‘festive’ song full of gunplay, random violence and vicious stereotypes about how the Differently Animated just want to eat you alive and make you ‘one of them’.

Just in time for Christmas.

Uggh.

The Zombie Rights Campaign had an EXTREMELY easy time, given the complete inappropriateness of both the messaging and the timing, in giving this video/song our lowest rating, the Living Supremacist mark of shame:

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Music, Youtube Mischief, ZRC Reviews

Posted By John Sears on December 26, 2011

From BuyZombie we learn of yet another Zombie Apocalypse themed clothing product:

When the zombies strike, an abundance of warning signs can help prevent the spread of infection. Our advice? Wear a reminder. It may seem obvious but humans are easily distracted, especially when they find a stash of canned foods with valid expiration dates.

I’m not sure what this hat is supposed to do, exactly; remind the wearer that they have a brain? Remind others that they have a brain?

Look, if you feel the need to regularly demonstrate that you have a brain, you… are precisely the sort of person who’d buy a hat to do it.

Nevermind; I retract my objections! Marketing genius, but still not Zombie Friendly.

You can get this hat at SplitReason.

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

Posted By John Sears on December 24, 2011

Here at the ZRC we tend to be critical of the ongoing trend to just splash a bit of Zombie flavor into anything entertainment related and rake in the bucks; we even have a blog tag for it, ‘Don’t Use the Zed Word’.

This comes up a *lot*.

Yet when I saw this story about an unauthorized Zombie-infused parody of the Wimpy Kid book/media series, and the legal trouble it faces, I couldn’t help but sympathize:

The owner of the popular Wimpy Kid franchise is suing an upstart publisher for releasing an illustrated “diary” featuring a haggard, blood-spattered version of the wimpy protagonist. The “Diary of a Zombie Kid” lawsuit is a feast for headline writers (cue your “He’s No Wimp” lines) but will also test the fine line between a joke and a rip-off.

…

According the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, the books have sold more than fifty-two millions copies and the wimpy kid become a full-fledged cultural icon with an appearance last year in the Macy’s Thanksgiving today parade.

The zombie kid arrived on the scene this August via a small publisher, Antarctic Press, which released the book in a similar color and cover design. But the protagonist of the new title, is not just wimpy:

Middle school is horrific enough for any 5th grader’s first day. But for Bill Dookes, it’s a festering, rotting, undead nightmare! Since Bill’s deadbeat dad got arrested trying to burn the house down for the insurance, Mom’s had to make ends meet by volunteering to various medical research companies for cash. This would be fine if she hadn’t brought home a mysterious zombie virus! Now Bill has to deal with skin problems and body chemistry changes that make puberty look like a walk in the park! And then there’s his ever-growing appetite for BRAINS!

(Italicized portion is actual product description)

Now, first of all, that certainly sounds like a parody to me, and hence, legitimate free speech. It also sounds like a media Goliath once again acting like a humorless stooge toward anyone small enough to kick around.

But just read that bit in italics there, the official book description. It sounds like this might be a *Zombie Friendly* parody that they’re trying to suppress.

In fact, in the absence of other evidence, I have little choice but to conclude that this is the case, and that the ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ author is in fact desperate to keep Zombie Friendly children’s material off the shelves.

I mean, just look at how far he’s willing to go:

Needless to say, lawyers for Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney are throwing the kitchen suit at the zombie, demanding a temporary injunction and a galaxy of copyright and trademark damages.

Really, Mr. Kinney?

Somehow I think this is a bigger issue for Mr. Kinney than just that someone took a few parody potshots at his comic. This sort of overreaction is something we see a lot at the ZRC; it reeks. It reeks of potential prejudice.

There’s more to this story from a ZRC perspective, however, because Antarctic Press has come in front of our media criticism crosshairs before, as has the author of ‘Diary of a Zombie Kid’, Fred Perry.

Because that’s the publisher, and author, of, wait for it…

‘The Littlest Zombie’

Yes, ‘The Littlest Zombie’, which we’ve reviewed here on the blog at least three times as issues slowly trickled out over the months and years.

As you can see, the comics in question have rated ‘Anti-Zombie’ pretty consistently, so Mr. Perry is hardly, historically speaking, a Zombie Ally. Yet his ‘Littlest Zombie’ has always displayed a certain sympathy for the titular Undead waif that left us wondering here at the ZRC if he might one day turn over a new leaf and truly join the ranks of the Zombie Enlightened.

Well, maybe.

Here was the chance to finally see Mr. Perry graduate to a nobler and more humane artistic form, and now it faces extinction, because of what? Snippy legal action?

Come on, Mr. Kinney. Can’t we settle things in the court of public opinion?

More to the point, haven’t you ever heard of the Streisand Effect?

The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the perverse effect of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.

Gee, I wonder if that would apply in this instanc–

Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we’ll deliver when available. We’ll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.

Oops.

And of course if the book is successfully suppressed it’s just going to be the hottest thing on BitTorrent for a week, because, well, that’s what the internet does to censorship. Honestly, it’s like some people born in the 20th Century have their minds stuck in the Pre-Enlightenment.

Needless to say the ZRC is now *very* interested in obtaining a copy of ‘Diary of a Zombie Kid’ for review. We’ll keep you posted, loyal readers.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Books, Mainstream Media, Social Justice