Zomblog 11: The Undiscovered Country

As my trip to Zombie World comes to an end, I would like to reflect on things.

I came into this class with basically no interest in Zombies. I thought they were played out, like Steampunk. Now, I think they’re interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still kind of of the mindset that Zombies are sort of overdone. If done really interestingly, Zombies can be cool. They just usually aren’t. It takes creativity to make them interesting, but there’s a lot of creative people in world who can do it.

I’m really happy I came to Zombie World. I’ll probably come back at some point.

Anyway, I’m off to Vampire City. See y’all!

Zomblog 10: That One Zombie Movie I'm In

Yeah, you read that right. No, you can’t see it.

Interaction School of Performing Arts, which my mother used to run (it’s still around, she just works for the city now. Also not really important, since she didn’t teach the camps) has a yearly movie making camp. Every summer, kids ranging from like 3 to 17 come in to make a movie. We split it into two different camps, one for the youngsters and the other for older kids. Even since I stopped doing it about four years ago, I often come in and help, even sometimes cameoing in the films. When I was a kid though, I was super into these movies.

The first one we did was a Zombie movie called Horrorview High. We called it this because we filmed it in Harbour High School over the summer. It was the harrowing story of a mad drama teacher/occultist who used dark magic to transform his uncooperative students/cast into easily-controlled zombies during rehearsals for Annie.

I played a kid named Trevor, who had basically no personality traits besides being an annoying nerd. Trevor is friends with Garth, who is Goth. Trevor is bit by a child zombie played by my sister and transformed into one himself. Our zombies were very Romero, slowly shuffling through hallways lit by flickering bulbs. We had a small amount of pale makeup and sunken black eyes. We were pretty Ghoulish looking and it was genuinely kind of cool for something made by little kids (with adult direction, of course).

Oh, remember how I said the characters were doing Annie? Well, we sang as zombies. It sounded basically like what you’d expect.

Come to think of it, it’s kind of a premise you could make a real movie out of.

I have a copy and again, NO, you guys aren’t allowed to see it.

Zomblog 9: D&D&Z

I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. Well, not really, I play Pathfinder. It’s kind of the same but also very different. I can’t explain it all here, so just look it up. For all intents and purposes, though, I play D&D. Every monster you can think of has stats in D&D and can be battled: Wendigos, Oni, Draugr, Manticores, Golems, The Star-Spawn of Cthulu, those four-armed white ape monsters from John Carter of Mars, all of them. So, obviously, D&D has Zombies and other kinds of undead.

I should explain that D&D has no one setting. Players can design their own world with its own lore. There are, however, certain preset worlds players can use if they desire. Probably the most popular is Forgotten Realms, but others exist such as Eberron, Greyhawk, Krynn, and so forth. I’ll specify when things are specific to one world.

D&D is full of different races: Elves, Halflings, Orcs, etc. In most worlds, pretty much any creature, including these ones. Forgotten Realms really likes to create specific subtypes of monsters. As such, they have Absorbing Zombies (who can absorb magical spells), Acid Zombies (who ooze acid) and, yes, Zombie Dragons. Yes!

Yes!

D&D’s ghouls are also basically Zombies. They are undead who eat people and can infect you with a bite. They’re not really rot-ridden, and can paralyze most people (except for elves) with a touch. I’ve always really liked these guys.

Oof me too

Point being, Zombies and other undead can exist in non-Earth, fantasy settings.

Zomblog 8: Argyle is the Best

As has been discussed before, not all Zombies are evil. We’ve named examples throughout the course, but one thing we’ve never discussed is the idea of a heroic zombie. That’s because there aren’t many.

But I found one. Oh, boy did I find one.

That’s right ladies and gents and nonbinary people, we’re going back into the world of Fallout. I’ve talked about Fallout a lot; I even wrote my second paper on it. Surely, there must not be much left to discuss when it comes to Fallout’s Ghouls. Well, pretty much, except for the fact that this guy exists:

That, my fiendish friends, is Argyle. While he may not be the most important Ghoul in Fallout, nor the only one to save lives and fight for the greater good, he is the most badass Ghoul that nobody remembers. Argyle isn’t a major character. You can’t even meet him. His exploits are nearly unavoidable.

For those who don’t know, Fallout is designed as an anachronistic setting where certain dated elements of the past exist in a post-apocalyptic United States alongside futuristic elements. The best way to explain this perhaps is to show you one of the game’s robots:

They’re clearly intentionally designed to harken back to the way a super powerful robot may have looked in a pulp serial or B-Movie. This is important to understand in order to really get Argyle.

Fallout’s soundtrack is made up of Golden Oldies like Cole Porter and Dean Martin. These songs are being listened to by your character (who you can design and name yourself) on a radio playing out of a device on your wrist called a Pip-Boy. Pip-Boys are sort of like really shitty apple watches. They’re huge and clunky, but they fit the aesthetic of the world. The radio broadcasts are being created by people across the wasteland. Most notable of these guys is Three Dog, a guy in the wastes of Washington DC who is a major character in Fallout 3. Three Dog not only plays music, but also pulpy radio dramas centered around Herbert Dashwood and his trusty sidekick: Our guy, Argyle. Surprisingly, they're real characters in-universe.

Argyle’s pre-war, meaning he existed before the nuclear war and was transformed into a ghoul by the radiation. Apparently he met Dashwood under less-than-stellar circumstances. You see, Dashwood accidentally stole Argyle’s girlfriend. Despite this, Argyle became extremely loyal to Dashwood, following him and aiding him on his adventures.

Argyle was skilled in unarmed combat, being trained in Kung-Fu and capable of disarming explosive slave collars (slavery is rampant in the Wastelands). The pairs adventures aren’t all detailed, but with the level of fame they retained (popular enough to have a radio drama based on them) we can only assume they were pretty rad. Argyle is stated to be strong enough (at least according to the likely exaggerated radio dramas) to quickly dispatch a Super Mutant. That’s no small feat, as Supermutants are massive cannibalistic Orc-Hulk guys who crush people with rebar pipes and then devour them.

Look, I don't want to fight one.

The big story, the one which matters to the player, is the “Rockopolis Crisis”. Rockopolis was a secretive underground settlement led by King Crag, the location of which few knew. That few happened to include Dashwood and Argyle. After the duo escaped from a group of slavers, they rescued a woman to be a fellow hostage named Penelope Chase, who tricked Dashwood into revealing the location of Rockopolis and how to enter. It turns out she was actually the leader of the Slavers, and her minions were headed to the location Dashwood provided.

Argyle rips her heart out with his bare hands.

The duo travel to Rockopolis to warn King Crag, who becomes justifiably angry and orders the inhabitants of Rockopolis to attack the duo. They try to escape, and are separated. Dashwood makes it out alive but, tragically, Argyle dies.

Years later, an elderly Dashwood hires the player’s character, nicknamed in-game “The Lone Wanderer” to find Argyle in order to give him closure. Dashwood refuses to believe Argyl is dead. While he is wrong, the player is able to bring him some closure when they find Argyl’s corpse.

This is especially nice of the Lone Wanderer who is currently on a mission to find their father (voiced by Liam Neeson) and also defend the inhabitants of the Wasteland from the Enclave, Nazi-like remnants of the jingoistic and McCarthy-ish pre-war United States government.

The Enclave seem like nice people.

Good of he/she/they to take some time away from that to help an old man come to terms with his loss.

Argyle shows us something. Not all zombies are evil. Some are kung-fu manservants who fight monsters. I assume Argyle is based on Kato from The Green Hornet, being a minority, a servant of the hero, and an accomplished martial artist in a radio programme. With the amount of pop culture references in Fallout (Deckard’s gun from Blade Runner is in New Vegas, the whole thing is inspired by A Boy and His Dog, there’s even an Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull reference!) I doubt this isn’t the case.

Zomblog 7: Black Nights and Dead Days Part 2: Zombie Reed Richards is Useful

Blaargh!

I promised we'd talk Marvel Zombies. I don't want to disappoint all of my fans who are obligated to look at my blog for marks, so here we go. Marvel Zombies started in the pages of Ultimate Fantastic Four. For those of you who don't know, the Ultimate Universe was an alternate continuity Marvel had for years which was intended to be a modernized, more realistic version of the traditional Marvel Universe. Some of it is good, even great. A lot of it was quite bad. Ultimate Fantastic Four wasn't particularly good but was by far better than some of the other Ultimate stuff.

Anyway, in one storyline, Ultimate Reed Richard aka Mr. Fantastic builds a machine to bridge different worlds in the multiverse. He starts talking to who the reader is meant to believe is the classic Reed Richards. However, when they finally meet it turns out it was all a ruse, the other Reed Richards was actually a Zombie!Thus we find the most interesting part of the Marvel Zombies stories: the heroes and villains of Marvel stay sentient even after the infection.

When these versions of the characters were given their own series, we got to see the quirks that come with being a zombie superhero. Zombie Hulk would eat too much and when he turned back into Zombie Bruce Banner it wouldn't all fit inside him properly. When they were hungry the Zombies would become more like traditional Zombies: beings of pure hunger. This would last until they ate living flesh, when they would return to sentience. This led Zombie Peter Parker eating Mary Jane and then feeling bad about it. Zombie Reed Richards regrets nothing, willfully becoming undead in order to achieve the next step in human evolution. Almost no one is safe from infection, not even the gods of Asgard or characters with healing factors such as Wolverine. A group of the Marvel Zombies and up eating the Silver Surfer and Galactus and use the cosmic powers this grant them to devour aliens throughout the universe.

In another story the Zombies battle Undead-Killing Legend Ash Williams from the Evil Dead franchise. The Zombies later begin dimension-hopping, battling the Marvel Apes (exactly what they sound like: Non-Human Ape versions of the Marvel Heroes) as well as mainstream Marvel characters like Machine Man.

"ok so basically im monky"

These are not deep works. They're just fun. Sometimes, Zombies can just be fun.

Zomblog 6: Pure Kino

          

  Overlord is the story of a group of American paratroopers in Vichy France trying to destroy a German Radio Tower on the eve of D-Day. The lead, a young African-American Private named Edward Boyce uncovers a strange experiment being performed by the Nazis. From there, the film is a beautiful descent into madness.I saw this film on a Saturday afternoon, alone. There was barely anyone else in the theater. I ate a big bag of popcorn and grinned ear to ear for the film’s entire run time.

            So much about this film is excellent. For one thing, it mostly stars relatively unknown actors. Grey Worm from Game of Thrones is in it briefly, and Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt is one of the leads, but there’s no major star power on-screen. The only name recognition the film has is J.J. Abrams, who apparently decided to stop making the cinematic equivalents of a Wikipedia-based, poorly-cited essay you drunkenly try to write the night before its due while your roommate and his girlfriend distractingly make-out in the corner and instead actually attach his name to something good. He produced the film, which is probably what he should stick to doing.

What a nice smile.

            For another thing, it’s 1000% unabashed about what it wants to be. It feels like schlock but is well directed. It feels so much like a weirdly-delicious smoothie made from bullets, Tarantino Movies, the Del Toro Hellboy films, and old pre-code EC Comics. A review in Variety described it as being akin to Castle Wolfenstein or Aliens, both of which I feel are extremely apt.

            Oh yeah, this is about Zombies. Well, this movie certainly has Zombies. I think. I would say they’re zombies. They’re also kind of mutant super soldiers. Still, it very much feels like a really fun multiplayer game of Call of Duty: Nazi Zombies. One review I saw a while ago described it as being the best Nazi Zombie movie ever. I would have to agree, based on what I’ve seen.

           

Hey yeah so can Mathilde Ollivier's character please marry me?

Surprisingly, this film was very well received by critics. It’s certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at an 81%, and 20th century fox that they recruited its director, Julius Avery, to direct a Flash Gordon reboot (nice). The general consensus was that it was far and away better than it has any right to be, and some even found it surprisingly deep. I don't know about that, but it is certainly an absurd, gore-filled masterpiece of a thrill ride. It was no box office hit, but made more than it cost to create.

            Wait. Why are you still reading this? Go watch Overlord, dude.

Zomblog 5: Zombernate History

So, I’m a big fan of Alternate History. Stuff like Kaiserreich (What if the Central Powers won World War I?), The Years of Rice and Salt (What if the plague was deadlier?), and the Domination of the Draka (What if… uh… it’s complicated...) really appeal to me. One thing I’ve been wondering since this course began was whether Zombies had a noticeable presence in the genre. After some quick searching, I was surprised to find that there isn’t much Alternate History Zombie fiction.

Kaiserreich is extremely sick.

Don't let this fairly innocuous cover fool you, the Draka books are the weirdest goddamn thing.

I should explain that there is a serious conflict in the AH fandom about whether or not fantastical elements belong in the genre. Some say it defeats the purpose of the genre while others argue it only adds to the fun. To many alternate history fans, fantastical AH like Worldwar (What if Aliens invaded during World War II?) and Lord Darcy (What if magic was real and also some other stuff?) can never truly compare to more grounded stuff like Southern Victory (What if the South won the American Civil War?) and Resurrection Day (What if the cold war went hot?). I'm not in this camp, since I think fantastical alt-history can be fun.

The Perfect World Doesn't Exi-

Southern Victory is also pretty wacky by the end. It also features an uncomfortably explicit sex scene starring Mark Twain, so there's that if that's your thing. I won't judge.

It still perplexes me. The only real Zombie-based Alt-history timelines I could find were online creations. An artist named QuantumBranching has done quite a few, and I also found one made as an RPG. I suppose Overlord (the greatest film ever made) could qualify, except that it's more secret history than Alternate history.

Y'all need to watch this. It's lit.

A timeline where Zombies first rise up in 1968 (the year Night of the Living Dead was released) that then continues throughout the decades exploring this world WWZ-style could be interesting. Hell, dropping zombies into any historical era could be interesting. Zombies in the Western Roman Empire. Zombies in the Middle Ages. Zombies in the Civil War. These are all great ideas! If we can get stuff like Anno Dracula (What if Dracula took over England in the Victorian Era?), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Which becomes more alt-history as it goes on, trust me) and A Study in Emerald (What if the Great Old Ones ruled Earth?) why not some Zombie stuff?

Pictured: Captain Nemo's daughter slaughtering rapists a few decades before she kills Godzilla and fights Charlie Chaplin. League is insane. No Zombies, though.

A lot of zombie fiction from the past is now alternate history since its future no longer lines up with our own. I’m not really talking about that. I mean stuff explicitly written as alternate history.

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this, but it’s just an odd genre absence I’ve noticed. I know a lot of Alt-History fans love World War Z, so there's clearly an overlap between the fans of both genres.

I leave you with a few cool links:

Neil Gaiman graciously uploaded all of A Study in Emerald to his website. Not only is it free, but it's also formatted better than it was in print.

Youtuber Alternate History Hub has a great video about World War Z. He did art for it and everything. Check it out.

If you're curious about just how crazy the Draka stories are, check out this video by Talkernate History. They're a really fun podcast. Tell them I sent ya.

Note: I forgot about the Ghouls from Fallout, which is an alternate history. That being said, they're not the focus of the series.

Zomblog 4: Black Nights and Dead Days Part 1: Nekron is an Edgelord

Oh, look, it's Slipknot

Blackest Night is written by DC Comics nu-legend Geoff Johns. He's pretty overrated in my opinion, but regardless, the guy is hugely prolific and has completely changed the DC Universe's status quo more times than I've changed shirts. Johns loves Green Lantern. He invented the majority of the modern mythos surrounding the character, even reviving Hal Jordan, the most iconic version of the character, from death-by-turning-evil.
One notable element added to the character's lore by Johns was the concept of corps of cosmic heroes wielding rings of other colours. Each colour is similarly connected to an emotion or broad concept: Willpower for Green, Fear for Yellow, Greed for Orange, Rage for Red, etc.

How, you might be asking, does this connect to Zombies?

Well, Green Lantern's classic oath, predating Johns, begins "In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night...". As such, Johns interpreted what that Blackest Night might mean. For him, it meant a weird skull-alien named Nekron and his servant Black Hand (a necrophiliac serial killer) reviving all the dead DC heroes.
At this point, DC's heroes had just undergone the Final Crisis, a massive cosmic battle recounted in the much-better-than-Blackest-Night comic book Final Crisis.

God, Final Crisis kicks ass

Basically, everyone died in Final Crisis. Martian Manhunter. Jack Kirby's New Gods. BATMAN. The DC universe was losing heroes faster than Marvel loses readers. Nekron, being the big evil space bastard he is, decided to make a Black Lantern Corps and revive them all, as well as the deceased loved ones of any living heroes, as undead destroyers with which to eliminate all life in the universe.

Oh, that Nekron! Always getting up to mischief.
Included in Necron's ever-growing legion of Black Lanterns were Aquaman, his murdered infant son, the Golden Age Superman, Elongated Man, Terra, Hawkman, and Bruce Wayne (or, actually a clone of him. Spoilers: Batman was actually not dead and was just time travelling with amnesia. Because why the hell not) and many, many more.

Nekron even figures out how to possess formerly-dead superheroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow.

This is, by my standards, a zombie story. These Black Lanterns are evil, rotting monstrosities. Sure, they don't eat people, but they do brutally murder them and bring them back as Black Lanterns, resulting in a very unique form of infection.

I agree, Deathstorm, this is a pretty Radical image.

Of course, they rude undead dudes don't win. The Lanterns of every colour combine their powers Captain Planet-style and get White Lantern Energy, which is pure life power, and Green Lantern's nemesis Sinestro decides to pivot his career plans 180 and become the Champion of Life, wielding the White Lantern Ring and defeating Nekron and his allies. As he dies, Nekron argues that life has no meaning, just to let you know that he's a nihilistic bad boy. The heroes tell him that "We Give Life Meaning". Also, this somehow brings back a bunch of the dead superheroes but for real this time, which is very convenient.

Blackest Night is no masterpiece, but it is a piece of fun superhero horror fiction. It also has some fake-deep "philosophical" messages, a tradition Johns continues with Doomsday Clock, his piece of published Watchmen crossover fanfic which has been condemned by both guys who made Watchmen, so that's a thing.

Part One of my look at Superhero Zombie comics. Next time, we'll look at Marvel's take on the idea, and investigate why exactly this genre mash-up is so cool.

Zomblog 3: Last Men

"Lo! I show you the last man."

-Friedrich Nietzche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

For a reason of which I am uncertain, many people seem fascinated with the concept of a final man: the sole relic of humanity’s presence on this world. I myself am fascinated by the concept. I wanted to write about why I, and by extension our species, is so invested in the idea of a last man or woman. I found, however, that I had basically no idea why I found the concept appealing. Every part of psyche seems repulsed by the idea and yet I find narratives surrounding it so very compelling.

The first last man narrative I remember reading was the HG Wells novel The Time Machine. In it, a nameless inventor creates a machine by which he may travel forwards and backwards in time. He ventures to the year 802,701 AD. Here, he finds that humanity has split into two subspecies: the childlike and defenseless Eloi and the proactive yet cannibalistic Morlocks. To his horror, the time traveller discovers that the Morlocks use the Eloi as livestock. The time traveller travels beyond the scope of human existence yet ultimately returns to his own era. Here, Wells depicts probably the most appealing version of the last man scenario: one in which the last man can ultimately return to a world where he may dwell among his fellows. The only lasting repercussions are the psychological trauma the traveller is plagued with.

As a child, this novel fascinated me. I was awestruck and horrified. The Morlocks seemed unspeakably horrifying. Perhaps it was their desire to eat the more-overtly human and innocent-seeming Eloi, or their uncanny-valley physical descriptions.

In many ways, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend reminded me of Wells’ novel. Both feature a lone human who spends the majority of their respective novels isolated from any peers. Neville spends the majority of the novel absent from any fellow humans due to his ability to survive the vampiric plague. (Matheson) Meanwhile, the time traveller spends his trip to the far future with his own only meaningful companion being an infantile Eloi named Weena who cannot speak English. Although the traveller can understand some of the primitive Eloi language, the Eloi are seemingly intellectually stunted. Weena behaves like a very young child, leaving the Time Traveller devoid of an equal. (Wells)

 As a child, the isolation the Time Traveller feels affected me. It truly felt as though he was alone even with Weena and her kin as companions.

Another similarity between these novels is the twists they contain, which bear a resemblance to one another. The Time Traveller is initially unaware of the origins of the Morlocks. Neville similarly is surprised by the human qualities possessed by his vampiric opponents. As well, both feature an intellectual opponent who manages through their wits to outsmart the post-human creatures who wish to feast upon them. (Wells)

What many modern and postmodern Last Man novels share is the aforementioned feeling of isolation. Mary Shelley's The Last Man implies that loneliness and sorrow are the most natural human states, reflecting Shelley and her associates’ Gothic outlook. (Shelley)

To an extent, I suspect it is this isolation which I suspect gives this concept its appeal. Last Men have no laws governing them, no masters. As such, while we may not really want to be alone on Earth (I know I do not at least), I admire the apocalyptic independence of Robert Neville and his ilk. I feel as though misanthropic or at least socially reclusive readers may feel a kinship with these Last Men.

 Bibliography:

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive 

Foundation, 2006.

Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. Tom Doherty Associates, 1997.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. The Last Man. Bibliofile, 2009.

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. Baronet Books, 2008.

Zomblog 2: What's In A Title?

What's in a title? Sometimes, quite a bit.

Seabrook's The Magic Island reflects the mystical perception outsiders often have towards Haiti. In terms of the section we read, this "magic" manifests the practice of creating Zombies. While the title The Magic Island may sound somewhat whimsical, many would view Haitian Voodoo as having more sinister undertones. This is controversial, but many are repulsed by its conceptions, particularly the drugging and enslavement of the Zombies.

White Zombie to many today, reminds us of the band of the same name. After all, it's just a cool-sounding title. Yet, for those of its day, the title reflected racial and cultural expectations. The only Zombies anyone had ever seen, if any, were Haitians. As such, the title reflects the novelty of a Caucasian Zombie, similar to later films like Blacula relied on the novelty of a black vampire. I Walked With a Zombie similarly reflects the interaction between Haitian and Anglo-American cultures, as the title would, today, not seem quite so shocking.

Finally, Out Of The Tombs is a play on both the emergence of the undead from tombs as well as a piece of popular New York slang, reflecting its locale and subject matter.

All of these titles have one thing in common: they reflect the cultures in which they were written or set.

Zomblog #1: Who Can Join Zombie Club

My Definition(s) of "Zombie"

1. A Haitian folk tale about a walking, semi-dead slave to a Voodoo bokor.
2. A monster used in fiction. Generally, is a mindless reanimated corpse with a ravenous hunger for human flesh. Except for when they're just people infected with viruses and not actually revived corpse. Or when they're not mindless. Or when they don't want to eat people. It's complicated.

These are Vampires, people. V-A-M-P-I-R-E-S

Frankenstein's big bad boy=/=Zombie

Feral Ghoul=Zombie

Generally, I would say as long as they feel like Zombies and not something else entirely (I'm looking at you, Richard Matheson). For example, the Feral Ghouls in Fallout are not undead, merely victims of radiation (or maybe radiation mixed with a government-created virus), but they're appearance, behavior, and in-universe role makes them feel like Zombies. Frankenstein's Monster and his ilk, meanwhile, are reanimated corpses, but they don't feel like Zombies. The Marvel Zombies can speak and have superhuman abilities, but their demeanor, decomposing flesh, and desire to consume the uninfected make them feel like Zombies.

Marvel Zombies=Zombies