Zombie Lovers, UNITE - Articles - Zimbio

Zombie Prom Date Outings, Sometimes Better than Others

Fri, 12 Jul 2008 12:46:00 GMT

posted by HollyB
Remember how I said "If the weather's bad-Don't Go"
for the first Zombie Prom Date Knitter's Hump Day in the Park Outing? (I actually said weater,but, well, eh)

Anyway, some of us jackass's still went. Why you ask? ADVENTURE! Plus, I'd hate to say I was going to be somewhere and then have someone say "you weren't there...and I was, and it rained."

So we went. It was lovely, the park is great. The Pigs, they blew the stink off and built up an appetite. So around 5, right before all might storm hit, we drove over to Augusta for some pizza at Duda's.

We also caught a bluegrass band, the power went out so they went unplugged,

we watched the traffic from I-94 get rerouted through Augusta because the highway got shutdown, the Duda's daily special sign floated down the road, and we probably had the best pizza. Partially due to the adventure. It was right out of a twilight zone episode, bluegrass, strangers trapped together, it was the best.

When the rain broke, the Pigs said Good Luck to Shelly and jumped in the Pig-mobile.

The Ogre said not to drive in any water. Sadly, this was not possible. This is the P-mobile at a stop with the door open. I was tempted to let my crocks float away, but I kind of like those shoes and I'd feel like an ass with only one.

For July's Evening Outing, it was decidedly less rainy. I'm sure Carina's yard did not flood, and no arms were broken.

I can't really say if there was any licking or not. I'm not in charge of crowd control, I'm more like Ray Kinsella.

Dick, Janet and Christine of Fabrications
were super nice to us and WE LOVE THEM!!! They put up with all our Zombie Fighting crazy while in the middle of getting ready to go to a fabric expo. So a super big thanks to them.

Plus, they also said we could use their classroom next time...ah, gotta love that.

Who wears such fancy pants??? Show up next time and find out sucka!

How does one unwind after so much insanity? By begging Spinsanity to let you buy a sweet Spindle...she didn't bring any for sale ones!!! For shame. We had to console ourselves with deep fried pickles. Can you believe some of these so called ladies had never had fried pickles?google_ad_client = "pub-9350820269899602"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_ad_format = "728x90_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //-->

Winter's Dregs For Summer Reading

Tue, 9 Jul 2008 11:01:24 GMT

posted by ilozzoc

Zombie Stories To Put the Chill Back Into Your Summer Days
Chilling Comics

Summertime fun getting you down? Can't wait for the colder days, darker days, more depressing sunless days? Want to bury all sand-loving, beach-going, family members and significant others up to their necks close to the water's edge at low tide? Fret no more. Don't get mad, suicidal, or homicidal; instead, pick up Zombie World: Winter's Dregs and Other Stories from Dark Horse, and bring back your sanity with its two-hundred and forty pages packed with apocalyptic carnage.

These four stories, originally appearing in the Zombie World comic book series, bring us closer to those undead we all crave. Think surviving the glump at the gasoline pump is hard, try dealing with ravenous hordes of commuters who want to fill up on you. With writers and artists like Bob Fingerman, Kelley Jones, Tommy Lee Edwards, Pat Mills, J. Deadstock (how apropos), Gordon Rennie and Gary Erskine, you can feel secure in knowing that your hard-earned greenbacks are being well spent.

The title story, Winter's Dregs, kicks off the mayhem in a fast-paced panel by panel exchange between central characters caught up in their daily lives--and deaths. In a city overrun by rats, when people dying in reverse shakes up the routine run to Starbucks, cry havoc and let loose the zombies. Each page is drawn in a heavy, EC horror comics, over-inked style, bleeding black into the surroundings, the characters, and the action. The murky colors create a sense of constant dread which lets up only after you reach the last panel. The story takes time to set up its characters first, then introduces zombies in a subway smackdown after the mayor orders a full-scale assault on brazen rats vexing his administration. Involved dialog and social interactions sustain the buildup to zero hour, fleshing out the people whose mundane paths intertwine with the staggering undead in this day in the life--and death--of a city.

Not looking forward to watching Christmas in Connecticut for the umpteenth time because someone else thinks it is so romantic? Dreading the family holiday get together with relatives you wish could fall out of your family tree? Home for the Holidays turns the yule-time into ghoul-time for one extended Connecticut family. Placing bloody-good zombies against a snowy-white backdrop tinged with a mysterious green mist, the stark contrast replaces the placid roasting chestnuts by the fire mood with the more terrifying intrusion of uninvited family members looking for a lot more than the usual hors d'oeuvres and fruit cake.

The Mathiesen family faces trouble up to their Christmas eye-balls when the local family cemetery turns into a non-resting place for Methuselah Mathiesen and the rest of the dead family tree. Told as a flashback by Greg, who is hiding in the attic, the horror begins when family members en route to the clan gathering are attacked. The usual family bickering is quickly replaced by gunfire and death. Suffusing every page is the color green as the mysterious mist envelopes everything.You won't be singing Jingle Bells after reading this one.

Eat Your Heart Out by Kelley Jones is a disturbing story of zombie love (or maybe just infatuation). Told in first person narrative, we meet one sick--I mean lovestruck--man who falls head over heels for the girl next door. Unfortunately she dies and becomes a rotting corpse. They say love conquers all and for this nutjob--I mean loverboy--nothing will cool his ardor, not her endless appetite for the living or her lack of personal hygiene.

Jones' illustration is morbid and his words macabre. His smooth, elegant lines contradict the harsh scenes, creating a somewhat whimsical, mostly horrifying, exaggeration on the theme of eternal love. His depictions of this high-maintenance romance, between feeding sessions and "dates," is a hellish vision of madness. Facial close-ups emphasize the intensity of this nightmare, and the denouement will leave you unsettled, but satisfied.

The last story, Tree of Death, is a partial fusion of H.P. Lovecraft and R. E. Howard's pantheons, with a touch of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen styling for its characters. At times over-served with tongue-numbing god-names and familiar supernatural elements, the imaginative illustration and ambitious pacing manages to hold the story together well enough, providing a frightening glimpse into a world overrun by demons and the undead. J. Deadstock's graphic depictions of devilish gods combine Tarot card, Hieronymus Bosch, and Sidney Sime-like line strokes and shadows, revealing these creatures in all their Satanic malevolence. One gets the sense that different panel arrangement and sizing would have aided the story-telling more, but the artwork remains exhilarating.

Using her tantric powers, Alice raises the dead and summons Azzul Gotha, the Necromancer of Hyperborea. Although she longs to be his bride, he has another girl in mind. As the apocalypse begins, a small group of would-be rescuers go after the Necromonicon Hyperborea hoping to use its counter-spells against the demon gods known as Qlipoth (derived from the Hebrew word "qelipoth" meaning shells, or husks). Drawing on the magic system known as the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life for its plot, Pat Mills confuses the action a bit with too many gods and too much exposition.

The introduction of the Killcrop, the chosen, Ash-like, slayer of the demons starts the zombie ass-kicking action, but following a splash-page showing apocalyptic chaos, an odd interlude on the subway, between him and Gotha's intended bride-to-be, undercuts the already established notion that the world is overrun with death and destruction. Trains do not run when zombies and evil gods are befouling the earth. Of course, not experiencing a zombie or demonic befoulment personally, I'm making an assumption here; but it seems a reasonable one. Although flawed in its ambition to encompass more than it needs to, Tree of Death is still an entertaining and imaginative excursion into the supernatural and zombie realms.

So if you must go to the beach, while others bask in the cancerous rays of the sun or swim in the polluted waters, you can be reading about zombies or eating gritty peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. I know which one I'd rather be doing.

Zombies and Sophocles

Wed, 10 Jul 2008 17:01:00 GMT

posted by skinnyrydell

Burial Ground: The Night of Terror (DVD)
Somewhere between transcendently excessive and pathologically regressive there’s Burial Ground: The Night of Terror, Mario Bianchi’s 1980 zombie opus. Notorious for its relentlessly graphic gore, overtly oedipal elements, and the casting of a full grown man as a desperately confused adolescent, Burial Ground has become my favorite of the late 1970s / early 19080s Italian zombie cycle.

Eschewing cliched cinematic conventions like exposition and competent acting, Burial Ground is possibly the most nihilistic zombie movie ever. The plot: A group of friends meet for a weekend at an Italian villa. Unbeknown to them, the villa’s owner has resurrected a bunch of Etruscans as rotting, hooded zombies. Said zombies rise and attack.

That’s basically it. The group is eaten one by one as they try vainly to keep out the invading hordes while separating to make things easier for the zombies. Along the way we learn that little Michael might have some unhealthy feelings about Mama, which eventually leads to – without a doubt – the most shocking scene in zombie movie history. Michael is played by diminutive cult hero Peter Bark. Supposedly 25 at the time of filming, he looks more like 40 to me. But believe me, the film would not be nearly as fun without an obviously grown man playing the part.

There’s some debate over the zombies. Most are wearing masks ladled with worms and maggots, which many makeup aficionados deride as cheap. I personally think the masks are great. They give the zombies an authentically rotting and ancient look. Attired in long, dingy robes, these corpses look like they shambled out of a nightmare. Scenes of the zombies clawing their way out of graves in broad daylight are particularly effective, and the relentlessness of the zombie attack becomes quite unsettling as the film moves on.

The Shriek Show DVD looks pretty good for a film in which cinematography was probably not a priority. As opposed to the Vestron Video, the image here is bright and fairly clean. In other words, the gore is as vivid as it’s ever going to get.

This is not a movie for everyone. If you thought Friday the 13th Part V was really scary and really gross, don’t watch this. But if you think you can stomach it, Burial Ground: The Night of Terror is top-shelf zombie entertainment.

Zombie Evening Outing-Tonight

Tue, 9 Jul 2008 12:35:00 GMT

posted by HollyB
Tonight!
5 pm-7pm
Fabrications-
Clock Tower Green Plaza
8860 N. 32nd Street
Richland, Michigan 49083 Look at all that yarn! Fabric too! Please note, the Pigs will NOT be there. Why? Because for those who wish, there will be an after party at theBlackhawk Grill-Just down the roadNo, I didn't make reservationsWe're winging it.google_ad_client = "pub-9350820269899602"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_ad_format = "728x90_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //-->

Going to see Max Brooks tonight, How did I prepare?

Tue, 4 Jun 2008 12:26:00 GMT

posted by HollyB
Look, I finished my second knitty Foliage hat! That's not why I'm screaming.

Don't you see the freaking zombies? Lumbering, slowly, with dislocated shoulders and one leg dragging, flannel shirts askew pastey skin, well, the color of most people in Michigan.

It was cool, I stayed calm. I know zombies move slow. I had plenty of time to combat some other more pressing issues...

(Mind Map brought to you by the brilliant people at learning fundamentals)

Then I got out the Lobotomizer Bessie and got down to business.

It was messy, but really, how can we have Max Brooks come to town and have the place teaming with the reanimated corpses? That would just be lame.

So, besides my normal trail of dead, how will you recognize me at

Meet Max Brooks (Special Event )
I'll be standing next to this guy...Max Brooks, being all fangirl.
6 - 8 pm
Kalamazoo Public Library - 315 S. Rose St.

According to USA Today, Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War "Possesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone . . . Creepy but fascinating." Learn how to survive a zombie apocalypse from this former Saturday Night Live writer. Books for sale and signing.
Free (H)
269-553-7881
http://www.kpl.gov/

No, really, I'll be representing the Zombie Prom Date Knitters! T shirt, Snot Hat...plus the posse!

google_ad_client = "pub-9350820269899602"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_ad_format = "728x90_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //-->