Posted By John Sears on July 17, 2011

We’ve talked previously about how the Anti-Zombie bigot forces as well as the press in the UK got all upset that Leicester didn’t have a ready plan in place to oppress the Differently Animated in the event of the farcical and childish ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ fantasy. The ZRC blog also covered a peaceful protest/response to that rising tide of hate and distrust, on a more positive note.

Well, apparently the curious forces of Living Supremacist Hate have moved on to Bristol, and they got considerably more disturbing response from the city officials there:

Dear Mr Store

In response to your request, made under the Freedom of Information Act,
for details of Bristol City Council’s contingency plans for dealing with
zombies, I can now release to you the following strategy document.
Please note that this document contains various redactions as it has
been considered that some information contained therein must be redacted
for the purpose of safeguarding national security. As a result, section
24 of the Act applies. Although the City Council aim to be transparent
and accountable to the public, in this instance it is considered that
our duty to safeguard national security outweighs these aims on this
occasion.

…

Peter Holt
Service Director of Communication and Marketing
Bristol City Council

Mr. Holt’s document is a harrowing exercise in the preparation of violence and repression against a misunderstood minority group the community:

Bristol City Council

Top Secret

Contingency Plan For Handling Zombie Outbreaks in Bristol

Following advice to local authorities from [redacted, on grounds of national security] Bristol City Council has adopted the following contingency plans.

Alert states

Be aware of the following possible alert states.

Ambient zombie level – business as usual, but be on the lookout for tell-tale signs

Enhanced activity level – confirmed zombie attacks on the populus

Major outbreak – zombie infection level in excess of 1%, multiple sightings across the city

Zombie pandemic level – concentrated outbreak, with infection levels over 30%

The document alleges that the city and perhaps the national government have set up an elaborate system of secret mobilization, activated by code word signals that will be given out over the air and television broadcasts so they can launch their Anti-Zombie pogrom in secret!

Mobilisation

To avoid widespread panic, codewords are in use to mobilise these contingency plans. All staff should therefore be on the look out for references on TV or Radio to [redacted, on grounds of national security], and then proceed to their pre-assigned emergency stations.
These coded references will be broadcast on nation & local radio and television networks

Shockingly, they even go so far as to advise on the best methods of Anti-Zombie *murder*!!

Health and Safety Implications

Remember the correct zombie killing proceedure:

1 – Fully disconnect the brain-stem from the body through either blunt force or full head removal

2 – Avoid all unprotected contact.

3 – Zombies are extremely aggressive. Do not approach unless adequately armed.

Truly this is a dark day for the United Kingdom. The ZRC must hereby issue a Travel Advisory for all Zombies to avoid the Bristol area at all costs. In addition, considering the unknown level of collusion with the national authorities in Bristol’s nefarious scheme, and the recent spate of Anti-Zombiism both in the UK and Europe more generally, we are cautioning all Zombies against unnecessary travel to the United Kingdom in general until further notice.

Bristol’s City Council has officially declared the city to be Living Supremacist.

Please be advised and stay tuned to the ZRC Blog for more updates as they become available.

Category: Zombie Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Euro-zom, Social Justice, ZRC Travel Advisory

Posted By John Sears on July 17, 2011

Anti-Zombie prejudice has been splashed into the Western genre before, notably in Marvel Zombies 5 for instance. More broadly, horror-westerns have been seen sporadically, including ‘Dead Bones’ with Ken Foree (of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ infamy).

Still I have to give this film, which from the trailer appears rabidly Anti-Zombie, some credit for sheer scale and ambition:

How does a man deal with the loss of everything meaningful in his life, and the loss of mankind’s humanity amongst chaos and despair? Set in 1870′s Tennessee, Exit Humanity is the legend of Edward Young’s horrific and dramatic journey through an unexplainable outbreak of the walking dead to lay to rest the most important thing in his life, his son’s ashes. The bleak post-Civil War era backdrop highlights the severe divide that the United States was facing, the disasters that arise when man tries to play God, and the true loss of hope that so many felt during this period in history.

Exit Humanity blends live action and classical animation to explore how when in situations of severe horror, we must find hope through the very fears that drive us. Starring horror icons Bill Moseley (Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses), Dee Wallace (E.T., Cujo), Stephen McHattie (The Watchmen [SIC], 300), introducing new horror hero Mark Gibson, and Narrated by Brian Cox (Braveheart, The Bourne Identity), Exit Humanity is a zombie saga that tells the tale of the ultimate battle of good vs. evil.

The ‘ultimate battle of good vs. evil’, and no points for guessing what side the Zombies are supposed to fall on.

Sigh.

The worst thing about this job besides the rampant Anti-Zombie prejudice is that from time to time you get a good, clear view of the iceberg coming, the film or book that the ZRC will be dealing with for a long while to come. Some are obvious, like ‘World War Z’. Some are less so, but I’m getting a distinct vibe off of ‘Exit Humanity’. A vibe that says, ‘guess what you’ll be seeing at a *lot* of film festivals in the future?

And picketing no doubt. And picketing.

The trailer is embedded below so that you can get a feel for what I’m talking about. High production values, period drama, Living Supremacism, bit of an art cinema thing going on too. Dangerous combination.

From The Escapist.

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

Posted By John Sears on July 17, 2011

I have fond memories of my four years at Indiana University. Well, four years in school for me, then living on campus for a while with the art director, but you get the idea.

Indiana University has a fairly prominent student paper, the Indiana Daily Student. As the title suggests, it is written and published by students, and comes out daily, so they have a lot of space to fill, and a great deal goes to student written columns and op-eds.

Which brings us to the following verbal atrocity:

Like many others in the past decade, I fell under the siren song of the zombies.
One of the outgrowths of the current “zombiemania” is creating survival plans for the zombie apocalypse.

This phenomenon can likely be traced back to “The Zombie Survival Guide” and “World War Z,” both books written by Max Brooks. Zombies and the resulting apocalypse were a fun hypothetical to think about, but enough is enough. Let’s find something else to cynically exploit.

…

There are far too many zombie-focused pieces of pop culture, and it’s reached a saturation point. It’s time to put the zombie concept to bed for a while, lest it lose its luster, or as much luster as a reanimated, cannibalistic corpse can have.

The popularity of zombies is threatened by the same downfall of so many other cultural artifacts: audience fatigue.

…

hat being said, there are many medias that use zombies in a novel and interesting way, such as the 2004 film “Shaun of the Dead,” the 2009 film “Zombieland” and the ongoing comic-based TV series, “The Walking Dead.”

What made those pieces of work so interesting is they took a fairly tired concept and infused new life, whether through the use of humor or in the case of the comic, exploring the darker side of humanity and how humans behave when society crumbles.

The mind boggles that one short op-ed could be filled with so much misinformation.

First, the bigoted phenomenon known as ‘Zombie Survivalism’ may have come back into vogue thanks to Max Brooks but it easily goes back farther. George Romero pioneered the behind-the-barricades approach to inducing drama in Zombie films in the 60s and 70s after all. What Max Brooks did was apply a thin veneer of literary respectability to the daydreaming practice.

Second, don’t you just love the genre of media criticism that says ‘Something is too popular so I believe it should go away to keep it fresh’? Is this hipsterism or just an annoying trend that pops up whenever anything bubbles to the top of the zeitgeist?

Third, I love that Andrew Crowley believes that ‘The Walking Dead’ pioneered the exploration of how society collapses under the strain of a supposed Zombie Apocalypse (the ZRC of course prefers the term ‘Global Reanimation Block Party’). A novel observation, and surely correct.

I mean, it has to be the early-2000s vintage Walking Dead that popularized that use of the Zombie as metaphor for the fragility of the social order, and not:

-Night of the Living Dead (1968)
-The Omega Man (1971)
-Dawn of the Dead (1978)
-Day of the Dead (1985)
-Return of the Living Dead (1985)
-Demons (1985)

You get the idea.

All this mockery is leaving aside that Zombies in fiction predate Romero in American fiction by many decades, or that the Zombie Apocalypse is easily seen as a modern update of the classic plague fear story genre, ranging from The Decameron to A Journal of the Plague Year to Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death or Stephen King’s The Stand.

And of course, from a Zombie Rights perspective, the whole discussion needs to be bookended with a note that, contra Mr. Crowley, Zombies are people too, not merely cannibalistic Undead monsters to be feared in genre fiction. For that matter, it would help if he in fact had more than a very passing familiarity with the genre before castigating it (which is really my job at any rate).

But ZRC columnists can’t be choosers, sometimes.

A larger question than why a student chose to write a bigoted and poorly informed Anti-Zombie screed is why the Editors of the IDS chose to run it. I mean, are they really so desperate to fill column inches that they will push any old unimaginative and shallow prejudice out the door?

For shame, IDS. At least in my day you tried not to be patently offensive.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Books, Comics, Journamalism, Max Brooks is a Jerk, Robert Kirkman, Romero, Social Justice, Television

Posted By John Sears on July 16, 2011

Very little seems to be available about this upcoming Zombie Film on the internet, but there is a trailer, so let’s engage in some critical analysis that may prove frightfully incorrect later when actual facts are available, shall we?

First, the trailer and description from Youtube:

A teaser trailer for the upcoming zombie film, Stranger. Directed by Eric Robbins. Starring Johnny Robbins and Dustin Hamman.

What can we glean about this movie from the trailer?

Well, it seems to be primarily about one lonely individual wandering the wilderness. We’re told it’s a ‘zombie film’ and yet we see no Undead explicitly in the movie; a couple of characters seen from behind or extending off camera might be Differently Animated.

Then again, let’s get crazy, and assume that the protagonist seen on screen IS the Zombie and just has an unusually ‘normal’ skin coloration for a Living person.. maybe this is a movie about a lone Zombie wandering the wild places looking for people who will accept him?

No? Bit too ‘Frankenstein’? Well, until information comes out to the contrary, I choose to be optimistic.

Via BuyZombie

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Movies, Youtube Mischief

Posted By John Sears on July 16, 2011

It’s always disturbing to learn that an icon in public life is an Anti-Zombie bigot. I mean, Max Brooks made a name for himself being evil, but undoubtedly some comic book fans were disheartened when Robert Kirkman showed his true colors. Woody Harrelson? I never saw that one coming.

But the Cookie Monster, beloved children’s icon, an Anti-Zombie bigot? Surely not, right?

Well…

Some background first: ‘Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster‘ is a new game from Double Fine Productions, Tim Schafer’s company, which has a reputation for quirky but interesting concept games. This is their first licensed/branded game, but it didn’t start out that way. They were going to make a game using original monster concepts but found that it was a natural fit with Sesame Street, and so a marriage was arranged.

Which leads to a promotional video where Cookie Monster supposedly vets the original concept for ‘Once Upon a Monster’ and rejects it. This supposed original idea?

A Zombie game along the same lines. Zombies, sympathetically portrayed, who need the protagonist’s help to solve problems.

In fact, not only does Cookie Monster reject it, he rejects it with a snide and hurtful comment about Zombies being ‘kinda 2007′

Now, clearly, we here at The Zombie Rights Campaign take great exception to this video and Cookie Monster’s behavior within. He is supposed to be an inclusive role model for America’s children, yet here he is shown as callous and unfeeling toward Zombie kids nationwide. That should be, and is, unacceptable.

For some expert insight, I consulted the ZRC Cultural Historian Andrew Leal, who helped write the book on Muppets (this one anyway).

He pointed out that the Cookie Monster is more than a little selfish and largely unaware of identity politics. CM doesn’t generally work toward broader Monster solidarity; most of the time he’s just focused on the cookies, or these days, I suppose, fruit snacks and ‘sometimes’ cookies. It’s not that he’s prejudiced against Zombies, it’s that, well, he only cares about topics that affect him, cookies most importantly.

Narcissism and obsession as a defense against the appearance of prejudice; it could be effective but it’s certainly not pretty.

Clearly there are some valuable things to take away from this. One is that ignorance can lead to prejudice in actions even if not in intent; another is that we need more Zombie representation in children’s media and educational programming. Sesame Street needs a Zombie character to help combat misunderstanding and bigotry!

We’ll have to work on that lofty goal.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Mainstream Media, Social Justice, Television, Videogames

Posted By John Sears on July 15, 2011

‘Fido’, which I’m working on screenshots of for a full review for the ZRC blog, famously explored the concept of abusive humans using Zombies as slaves, and what might happen when one little boy treated his Zombie more like a pet, and eventually, a member of the family instead. It was an interesting, outside the box way to get people to reexamine their prejudices about the Differently Animated…

Some people however seem to take the ‘Zombie pet’ metaphor a bit too literally, and as a result we get things like ‘My Pet Zombie’:

My Pet Zombie is a free game for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. It launches in the App store worldwide Thursday July 14th, 2011.

Zombies have never been so cute.

These zombies don’t just shamble around and moan about braaainz. You can dress them up, change their hairstyles and facial features, and watch them dance. There’s even a minigame inside the game that lets you earn “cursed coinage” to buy more cool stuff for your pet zombie.

There’s a trailer available too:

Every time I critique something like this I tend to get responses like, ‘Well, they’re not SHOOTING the Zombies, isn’t that progress?’

And of course, it might very well qualify as progress, yes… and that’s terrible. It’s truly terrible that treating a group of people who happen to share a vitality status as PETS could be construed as a kindness and a step up, but such is the world we live in.

Sigh.

Here again, with a little tinkering we have a product that could have been Zombie Friendly. Why not ‘My Zombie Friend’ instead of ‘My Pet Zombie’? You could still have your adorable little customized on-screen avatar; heck, Xbox Live and the Wii love those things. But instead of the negative treatment of the Differently Animated as some sort of domesticated animal you would have a positive, coalition building sort of interaction.

Language choices are important, people; I cannot stress that enough.

For now, the ZRC must sorrowfully criticize this project, which had so much potential, instead of praising it for forward-thinking and an enlightened attitude toward the Differently Animated. For shame. For shame.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on July 15, 2011

We’ve talked about the fuzzy line between Zombies and Demons, at least in the media, here before at the ZRC blog, and of course the ‘Evil Dead’ series of Anti-Zombie films popularized the concept in America at any rate. Still, this story took us a bit by surprise:

TORONTO – Half zombie, half demon, Christopher Lloyd has joined Dead Before Dawn, the Canadian indie 3D horror film from Wango Films, now shooting in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

…

Dead Before Dawn, directed by April Mullen, follows college kids that accidentally unleash an evil curse that causes people to kill themselves and turn into zombie demons, or zemons.

‘Zemons’? That just makes me think of lemon when I read it. Are these Zombies particularly sour?

You might be too if you were always the bad guys.

At any rate, indie zombie movies are attracting top talent these days, with Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench in ‘The Curse of the Buxom Strumpet’ for example, while Jeff Bridges will star in ‘R.I.P.D.’

We just wish more of them were like ‘R.I.P.D.’ and featured positive depictions of the Differently Animated. From the article it does not sound like that will be the case with ‘Dead Before Dawn’. Pity.

From The Hollywood Reporter via BuyZombie.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Movies

Posted By John Sears on July 14, 2011

I am perhaps in a rather small minority who considers the Argento/Bava picture ‘Demons’ to belong in the Zombie film subgenre, although many of the classic Anti-Zombie tropes are present in ‘Demons’, which is also a highly stylish and atmospheric film (not uncommon in Euro-Zom movies) and relatively coherent (far less common).

The series is well known to the horror aficionado crowd here in America but far, far less known to the general public, so I thought the ZRC blog should note an upcoming double feature of the first two Demons films in, alas, faraway Texas:

Blood Thirsty Thursdays presents: Dario Argento & Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS!!!

A Demon Masquerade Party you won’t soon forget…or survive!

Don’t miss our Blood Thirsty Thursday showing of Demons and Demons 2 at The Woodlawn Theatre on July 28. Opening act: The Sandworms! ABSOLUTELY NO ONE UNDER 17 ADMITTED!

Now I’m not sure the tone suggested by the all caps and multiple exclamation points is quite what the ZRC would intend, namely a sober and serious minded critical appreciation of an Anti-Zombie/Anti-Demon film with historical import, but nevertheless, it is an opportunity to see the movies as intended, on a big screen.

Just making our readers aware of the opportunity.

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

Posted By John Sears on July 12, 2011

Well, the North American Discworld Con has come and gone, and the ZRC had a lot of delightful interactions, formed a lot of delightful memories and is itching to get back to our day to day tasks.

We talked with dozens of Zombie fans, and those more skeptical about the good intentions of our Zombie clients. We raised about a hundred dollars for Lynn Sage, a bit for our own pool of resources, and ran out of pamphlets TWICE.

Nice, huh?

We had a lot of great memories even if we spent most of the time in the dealer’s room; both the Art Director and I took brief breaks to see some of the Gaiman/Pratchett ‘Good Omens’ talk for example:

Some awesome people came through the Dealer Room in costume too, like this Bill Door/Death individual:

When it was finally time to pack up and leave, we had to put a final message of good will in the huge Guest Book the con had laid out to be signed and auctioned off:

They’re talking about another NADWCON in 2013, and the ZRC would love to attend.

Thanks again for having us!

Category: ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Books, Public Appearance

Posted By John Sears on July 11, 2011

Some housekeeping business to relate to you all:

–We are currently out of Ban Headshots shirts entirely and are working on a potential redesign, so unfortunately you should not expect a reorder for some time. We were happy to sell out, however! People love Spokeszombie Tim.

–Likewise, several sizes of our ‘Lurch for the Cure’ shirts are now out. Pending inventory-taking they will go back up on the store but only in some sizes until a Brunetto reorder. The Art Director wants to do some very minor graphical tinkering so the new shirts will be *slightly* improved; all costs will remain the same and all proceeds will still go to Lynn Sage

–We are low but not out of Large ‘Zombie Strong’ wristbands and out of the Mediums; a reorder is in process. We will be expanding the line to include a child size if possible as well this time around! People love the wristbands.

–We have a new print that will go up in the store this week, and an exciting new Zombie Organ Donor program to discuss. Stay tuned!

Category: ZRC News | No Comments »
Tags: Zombie Products