Why Zombies?
It's not news that Anton and my debut novels are prepping for their official release next week (both are even showing up in stores)! So I'll take a moment to pimp them gratuitously before I move on.
Buy them! Please! Only you can support an urban fantasist. Think about it like this, for less than a dollar per day you and your family can enjoy countless evenings of wholesome entertainment (well maybe not wholesome).
Me first, though. This is, after all, my post.
Buy them! Please! Only you can support an urban fantasist. Think about it like this, for less than a dollar per day you and your family can enjoy countless evenings of wholesome entertainment (well maybe not wholesome).
Me first, though. This is, after all, my post.
Amazon * Barnes and Noble
Amazon * Barnes and Noble
Amazon * Barnes and NobleNow, with that bit out of the way, we can move on to the topic at hand...Zombies! And specifically why zombies? In a few of the interviews I've given recently, the question came up as to where I got the idea for a zombie protagonist. It seems natural to me, since, I've always been fascinated by the living dead. I can trace it back to my childhood.
*cue flashback sequence*
My grandmother died when I was 5 or 6 and we travelled to her house in North Carolina for the funeral. I remember napping in her bed, there was an armoire in the room with mirrors inset in the doors. The room had that dusty grandma smell that accompanies crochetwork, antique quilts and aging perfume. It also had a big clunky air conditioner that was so loud it blocked out any sound from the rest of the house. When I woke up, one of the armoire doors was open and a hand reached out from inside, followed by a wrinkled leg, and then my grandmother's dead face emerged. Her eyes were clouded in cataracts. I woke up screaming, for real that time.
I continued to have that dream nearly every year until I graduated high school.
I became obsessed with zombies and read everything I could about their origins, the different varieties and, of course, many movies that had been and were being made. This was the seventies for long before the glut of horror that we access today. On my 5th or 6th birthday, my mother checked out a film projector and the black and white reel of Night of the Living Dead. It was the ultimate in positive reinforcement for my zombie infatuation.
I moved on to the italian zombie flicks from there, Fulci loved his gore bright red and so did I. Couldn't get enough.
If those aren't good enough reasons, then take a look at this...
How can you not love that? It's insane. A scene from Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, which is actually his first zombie movie but Night of the Living Dead was released in Italy under the name Zombi, so Fulci was screwed.
My obsession has only gotten worse from there. Particularly after Dawn of the Dead when it became clear that zombie's were the perfect horror tool for sarcasm. Return of the Living Dead ushered in the zombie comedy that became my favorite incarnation of this classic movie monster.
So...that's it. That's why zombies. At least for me.
You'll have to ask Anton.
*cue flashback sequence*
My grandmother died when I was 5 or 6 and we travelled to her house in North Carolina for the funeral. I remember napping in her bed, there was an armoire in the room with mirrors inset in the doors. The room had that dusty grandma smell that accompanies crochetwork, antique quilts and aging perfume. It also had a big clunky air conditioner that was so loud it blocked out any sound from the rest of the house. When I woke up, one of the armoire doors was open and a hand reached out from inside, followed by a wrinkled leg, and then my grandmother's dead face emerged. Her eyes were clouded in cataracts. I woke up screaming, for real that time.
I continued to have that dream nearly every year until I graduated high school.
I became obsessed with zombies and read everything I could about their origins, the different varieties and, of course, many movies that had been and were being made. This was the seventies for long before the glut of horror that we access today. On my 5th or 6th birthday, my mother checked out a film projector and the black and white reel of Night of the Living Dead. It was the ultimate in positive reinforcement for my zombie infatuation.
I moved on to the italian zombie flicks from there, Fulci loved his gore bright red and so did I. Couldn't get enough.
If those aren't good enough reasons, then take a look at this...
How can you not love that? It's insane. A scene from Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, which is actually his first zombie movie but Night of the Living Dead was released in Italy under the name Zombi, so Fulci was screwed.
My obsession has only gotten worse from there. Particularly after Dawn of the Dead when it became clear that zombie's were the perfect horror tool for sarcasm. Return of the Living Dead ushered in the zombie comedy that became my favorite incarnation of this classic movie monster.
So...that's it. That's why zombies. At least for me.
You'll have to ask Anton.
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