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to cover in more detail was the launch of a major fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund… one predicated on outdated Anti-Zombie stereotypes.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.

Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Clothing, Social Justice

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.