2000 AD Online Forum

RUN! ZOMBIES!!!!!!!

Well, not quite, but now that I've got your attention I'd like to tell you all about The End is Nigh, the magazine that deals with the Apocalypse in all its terrifying forms.

The theme for the first issue is zombies!!!!

Paul Scott has passed on the project to my tall self and we've settled on a theme of zombies and the genre they have spawned with their shuffling and their grunting ...

So ... we're looking for:

* reviews of zombie films and books. With the remains of Shaun of the Dead still freshly quivering and the 'reimagining' of Dawn of the Dead, an overview of the genre once crowded with unconvincing prosthetics and fake blood that's become fasionable again ...
* Pull-out Zombie Survival Guide! What to do if the undead come a'knocking ...
* Whatever happened to the Zombie? Maybe chart the shift already noted in zombies from shuffling brainless drones to running, biting, shouting terror!!!
* Comic strips - scripts should be three pages long and, of course, we need those artists!!! There's also newspaper strips wanted in a format of 6cm x 18.5cm.
* Features on what's in and out in the latest zombie fashions.
* What's it like being undead?
* A guides for vegetarian or pacifist zombies.
* Plus maybe a serious piece on the legends of the zombie and it's former ties to the voodoo religion of the Caribbean and Africa.

It's all in the best possible distaste and generally fun so please join the resistance at the Yahoo group (link below) or you can sendmail your ideas - all e-mails answered!!

All ideas and material are welcome and the deadline for final submissions is February - so look sharp, pick up the nearest blunt instrument and make your way through the hoardes of the undead!!!!

!

Link: JOIN US AND FEED ON THE FLESH OF THE LIVING!!!

D'oh!

!

Try again ...

Yay! Wondered who the mystery 'successor' was.

I'll have a couple of newspaper strips please.

Bet you'll want the 'wormfood' strips as well. The Phuz will be able to get them for you.

Bolt-01

Woomfood ? 3 panel undead minimalism genius by Dave Hailwood?..



Wormfood website

And Mike, can you get rid of that god-awful picture I drew for the front of the Yahoo Group and replace it with the slightly less god-awful picture below:

Zombies, you say...?

It's bloody Zombies now? Drat.

Just for the first issue, Arthur! We decided to go with a theme for each edition so people have got a bit of focus. Future issues will focus on:

* False messiahs, religious visions of the Apocolypse, Biblical floods, divine vengence, and the battle between good and evil for the end!
* Asteroids! Extinction Level Events!
* Nuclear destruction and surviving World War Three!

and many more!

Artists for strips and spot-illustrations, and writers for strips, articles and fun pieces still wanted!!!

E-mails are already pouring in but it's my deadline day so I'll get to them this afternoon! Keep the ideas rolling in!!

Mmmm Zombies. Finished working on a brace of the rotten little buggers last month.

You could always try this:

Link: Zombies.

Mess not with... The Bad Hair Zombies...!

Damn that sounds good. I'm a zombie expert. I live in a macabre state of half-life most days. I also two people who were clinically dead.

I'd love to contribute something but I dont know if I could do it, what with my state of living death, rapid mental degeneration and my exams. I might give it a go though.

JK.

Q:What do vegetarian zombies say?

A:Braaaiinnnsss

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

Bollox. Well, someone want to do a review?

I was thinking of a more 'visual' survival guide, with lots of nice spot illos of tips on how to deal with, escape from, prevent and care for (as pets) zombies ...

I know I've punted this site before - but I like its Zombie story

Link: http://www.scarygoround.com/?date=20030105

What about adverts?

Andy: Link not working.

Max: Yes please, but not too many. Although it's a fun mag, we're not planning on mimicking Solar Wind ...

I was thinking of an add for zombie skin care a foliating agent to keep all that dead skin in place

Anyone who doesn't like zombies is wrong-headed and should never, *ever* be trusted. ;)

You're right. I'm a spanner.

Link: Zombie in the Community

The mother of all zombie sites, old chaps....

Link: www.allthingszombie.com

And more zombie sites than you could shake a severed arm at.....

Link: www.allthingszombie.com/links.php

And it's also great to see that this film is finally going ahead.

Notice the names of who's billed as 'Zombie Cameo'.

Link: George A. Romero's: Land of the Dead

y'know I REALLY wish there was an edit feature on this board!

One little letter up there and I ruined my whole joke!

>:(

Link: Vegetarian Zombies Hoping to Break Stigma

Factoid: That zombie survival guide is written by Mel Brooks' son.  And that's a Factoid!

Another factoid:  He asked Mel what he thought of it before he submitted it to a publisher.  Mel told him it was "a piece of shit" and absolutely no-one would buy it.
Max submitted it anyway, it sold millions.  Mel apologised.
Factoid!

Went looking for zombie/voodoo stuff and found this.

They just don't make book covers like this anymore.

What is she hiding behind those cards? What?

Wahtever it is I'm sold.

If we have any Bond fans in the audience, a piece about the voodoo in Live and Let Die (both the book and the film) would be great! Maybe look at how it's probably the first mainstream representation of voodoo, where Fleming got his info from, the prejudices/assumptions in it and how it probably influenced people's view of the Caribbean for decades etc etc (...I'm rambling, but you get my point...)

By 'mainstream', do you mean non-horror?

You could try 'White Zombie' (1932) or
'I Walked With a Zombie' (1943).

I thought they were both pretty mainstream.

As I said, I was just rambling ... but yes, I meant non-horror. It was certainly my first encounter with voodoo ;o)

Actually, a piece on the evolution of the zombie film wouldn't go amiss, if someone would like to do it - they obviously don't start and stop at Dawn of the Dead!

*my first encounter with voodoo*

- I'm glad you got better.  ;-)

"they obviously don't start and stop at Dawn of the Dead!"

Started at Night of the living dead, will end soon.

WANTED: SCRIPT MONKEY!

I have an offer from an artist to do a one-page strip for this issue over the Christmas break, but I need a one page script!!!

A writer with a natty idea who would get it to me within the next fortnight will be richly rewarded with a mince pie .... OF DOOM!!!!

Sendmail me ASAP and I'll put you both in touch!!

Cheers

Sent you one , an eight panel one page strip. It's a (reletively old joke, but what the hey, as long as none of your other contributers have done it (which they may have done) /I hope it'll be okay

Thanks very much for that, mate. Have replied.

As for the rest of you - don't think this lets you off the hook! I want more, more, MORE!!!!! ;o)

'Mess not with... The Bad Hair Zombies...!'

Yes, yes, still coming soon *mutter*.

whooppee zombies, gotta love those undead dudes.

Might I suggest someone gets in touch with the lovely Gemma-devotee-of-Boo, if she hasn't already seen this, as she's big on the Vodoun religion and might therefore be able to help.

I've also got pages and pages of notes on "real life" zombies here for , which are probably useless if you're only interested in the shuffling evil fictional kind, but are easily summarised if it helps.

Zombies and apocalypses (apocalypsii?), for what it's worth, both receive the Spurious seal of approval.

Wow, just got into my office to find an inbox absolutely jam-packed with offers of work. I will reply to each and every one of them, but give me a mo and I've got to fit in some pesky work around it all ;o)

But that doesn't mean the rest of you are off the hook! Keep the ideas coming! At the moment I have particular need for more articles, reviews and scripts.

One area I need offers for is the Zombie Survival Guide - was thinking art along the lines of the kind you'd get in one of those aircraft safety cards - so anyone with some nice design skills who's up for the task would be good. I need short, snappy articles that sound completely serious but deal with the very sticking problem of zombies - how to avoid becoming one yourself, what to do during an infestation, what NOT to do, how to clean up after them, how to keep and care for a zombie, alternative uses for zombies etc etc It would be a special pull-out segment in the middle of the mag - so need plenty of good stuff!

Oh, and before I forget ...

LONGMAN CALLING GEM! LONGMAN CALLING GEM! ZOMBIEEEEEEES!!!

Damn, didn't work ... anyone got her e-mail address?

Koom Skree - "Gem" - Sendmail.

I know, but have come to not entirely trust sendmail as several recent e-mails have gone astray ...

OK, well let me know if it doesn't get through as I've got her address somewhere at home.

anyone with some nice design skills who's up for the task would be good

What you need is to find a messageboarder who just happens to be a graphic designer.

;)

Get your best ripped shirt out, nick your
mum's/girlfriend's/wife's/next-door-neighbour's eyeliner and gouge a bloody hole in your cheek (kidding!) because we're after photos of real-life (or real-dead) zombies!!!

If you've missed this year's must-have gift and *don't* have a zombie about the house, make yourself up as a zombie, do some zombie thing like devouring the flesh of the living or banging your head against a door repeatedly or have one of your friends PRETEND to hit you over the head with a cricket bat, take a photo and either upload it to the Yahoo group (link below) or e-mail me!

Make 'em as dramatic as possible!!! The idea is we get a whole batch of them and use them a photos for the various spoof-articles and adverts going in the mag.

BRAINFLASH: Maybe even have before/after zombification photos for a Make-Yourself-Into-A-Zombie advert?

Anyway, loads of people are joining up, but we more! MORE!!! So join up below ... before it's too late!!!!!

Link: JOIN US AND FEED ON THE FLESH OF THE LIVING!!!

One aspect no-one's mentioned yet is the computer game that defined many a university career: Resident Evil!

Anyone fancy doing an article on the history, background, storyline and impact of this inconic game and its sequals?

Is there no-one up for this Resident Evil feature? You don't have to do it all on your own, just thought there might be gamers out there who'd want to give their take on its zombie-related mayhem!

Okay Mike, what's this favour you want?

Zombie trivial factoid; the Saint met some zombies in a later short story. They were being employed by an evil American businessman who had moved to Haiti to avoid rising labour costs. He was going to zombify the Saint but..

spoiler, I suppose










a babaceous voodoo priestess to whom the saint had been kind protected him and made the businessman into a zombie instead

I remember General Contrary saying something along the lines of he knew how he'd survive a zombie holocaust (around the time Dawn/Shaun of the Dead came out).  He never did tell us. Maybe he will now.

Speed zombies versus old school shambling zombies, which are best?

Shufflers.

How about zombies from around the globe?

*Baggsy* 'Mexican Bandit Zombie'.

by the way, there`s a nice `zombie zoo` story in Garth Ennis`  `Hitman` comic

Yeah. A zoo filled competely with animals that live in water. Caleed an aquarium.

;p

Should speed zombies be redefined as Ghouls?

Ghouls are more lurkers than runners really.

I've always considered Ghouls to be ambush attackers, though. They're afast and move in packs. Mind you, the physiological changes with ghouls are far more drastic than with zombies (see the case of the artist Pickman in 1920's Boston for an example).

Could speed zombies be a new strain of the zombie curse? Or are they an offshoot that has only just made itself known to the greater world?

(Sorry, just getting into my zombie ecology a bit!)

SCRIPTWRITERS WANTED!!!

No, no, no, it's not Spurrier's latest brush with the law, it's a big request to all the budding script writers out there ...

I've got some great artists dying to get to work on stuff for The End is Night, but an absence of scripts!

Whatever the zombie idea, whatever the zombie length - sendmail me and let me know!!!

End is Nigh, obviously ...

LMS, what sort of length of script are you looking for?
Anything you can get your hands on, I presume?

One, two, or three-pagers! (though I'm short on the two and three pagers!)

Reckon you guys should see this.

Link: Zombie Simulator

Ghouls are not dead, they are humans who feast on nothing but human flesh. They desend on battle feilds at night to finish off the wounded and eat the dead.

Max, that's a Warhammer Fantasy Battle definition. There are others.

I think it was probably Dungeons & Dragons that formalised the late '70s definition of a ghoul as an undead monster that can cause paralysis with its poisonous claws and is especially vulnerable to silver weapons.

There was a 1933 film starring Boris Karloff as a vengeful Egyptologist who comes back from the dead intent upon murder; a 1975 one with Don Henderson as a cannibal afflicted with a tropical disease; and a 1980 one (The Monster Club) where ghouls were non-human monsters that ate human remains out of the cemetary, but weren't too fussy to turn down a bit of fresh meat either.

ghoul /gul/ n. L18. [Arab. gul.] In Arabic mythology, a desert demon preying on travellers; gen. an evil spirit or demon supposed to rob graves and devour corpses; a person unnaturally interested in death. ghoulish a. resembling or characteristic of a ghoul M19. ghoulishly adv. M19. ghoulishness n. E20.

---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary
Copyright ? 1998 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Man, that zombie simulator is freaky ... there's no hope, I tells ya!! NO HOPE!!!!

Anyone written a one page script yet?

I'm writing one (along with a load of other stuff).

The 1933 film 'The Ghoul' is much better than the seventies one (and it features Ralph Richardson posing as a vicar!), although the Freddie Francis one does have an excellent emotional performance by Peter Cushing (only two films since his wife, Helen, had died).

The less said about 'The Monster Club' the better ("the Shadmock whistles!")

Huzzah! Obviously, let me know if you're working on something - even if it's not finished! But also maybe mention it on the Yahoo newsgroup so anyone who'd either like to help/would like to draw your idea/can lend a little advice can put in their tuppence's worth ...

I spoke to Bolt about it yesterday, so I said I'd work out a preliminary draft of the script so that both you and he could get a better handle on the strip.

With all this talk of the living-challenged, I?m really in the mood to draw a zombie story [see below] ? I can fit in a one/two page strip over Xmas, after that I won?t have the time, so if anyone?s interested could they get a script to me by the end of the week?



Cheers- JohnK.

John - have e-mailed you ...

I'll write one tonight. Let's just say a certain board member will be present...

Great, thanks Krusti!

And do we have any scientists in the house? Still think it would be a good idea to look at any MEDICAL grounds for zombies existing, or at the real-life cases of so-called 'zombies' ...

LMS, you should try the Fortean Times site and board for that sort of thing.

Waaay ahead of you there, good buddy. But have you seen the messageboard?! My god, half the posts use words I've never even heard before while the other half allude to things I didn't even know people were suggesting ...

S'scary ...

I post on it from time to time, but most of the time just read it!
Interested as I am in the subject, I haven't done the research those folk so obviously have.

I could ask my dad , he might possibly know and be able to explain such possible events in a way understandable by laypeople

A post on the Fortean Times website has elicited a bit of interest, so things are trundling along nicely.

But we need more funny half-page and one-third page funny articles - including a zombie agony aunt and the 'How to Care for Your Zombie' Q&A page!

best zombie movies ever
1:dawn of the dead(the origanal)
2:the evil dead
3:brain dead
4:any sick italin gore flick set on an island with a bunch of hot dudettes having there eyes poked out by splinters.
5:same as above

Well, it's the most categorical list we have so far ;oP

1:thank you
2:i know

There are also some zombie films that differ from the norm as well. *Bizzare* Japanese film 'Zombie Island Massacre' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088454/) are two that spring to mind.

Right, I'm going away for the weekend (first full day off in three months!!) and won't be back until Monday afternoon.

Keep up the good work in the meantime and all the people who are doing scripts - keep up the good work!! Preferrably would like them before Christmas (so as to give the artists plenty of time to draw them!) but will understand if people have other, more pressing, problems ...

STILL on the look-out for little funny articles and mini-features, maybe even some spoof zombie news items - all ideas welcome!

ARTISTS: Please update me if I've asked you to do a spot illo or whether you're working on a strip, just sos I know ...

Cheers

LMS

Here's a zombie I madeearlier, and unearthed (ho-ho)  to keep this thread alive

Heh, nice. Get on with your caricaturing, you! ;)

Oi! I'm doing the "real-life" zombie thing!

Oh and by the way, Jared will be killing me in this publication, so it's only fair that I respond.

Just got back from my weekend away and very pleased to see writers have been busily writing away on strips ...

I now have a clutch of scripts that need artists!

Rather than me having to wade through the hundreds of e-mails I've received containing offers of work, could those of you not already assigned to arty-type tasks please raise a quivering, rotting limb and signal your desire to draw summat ... there's a nice mix of one, two and three pages. We'll all have to get cracking now, so all hands on deck!!

Cheers

LMS

"Oh and by the way, Jared will be killing me in this publication, so it's only fair that I respond."

Jeez Krusty it was a f*cking joke! I wish I had killed you now...

And in the story.

JK.

Sorry to keep bombarding you with ideas, but I think it's best to get them all out there so people not already involved may see summat they like and want to join in ...

I was pouring over the stuff I've received so far (all of it tip top lovely!) and was having a ponder ...

Sometimes it can be easy to get distracted by the fun of zombies and, at the end of the day, this is a mag about 'The End of the World', not just about zombies.

So how about a (some) more serious piece(s) on how zombies could destroy civilisation? It could examine the different threats posed, depending on whether they're vodou minions or victims of some unknown plague. If you're 'turned' by a bite - how long before we ALL become zombies? How long before clean water and food run out? How *would* a government deal with a zombie threat?

Intriguing questions, don't you agree? So far, we've got a lot of fun and interesting features about zombies - but could they bring about the end of the world as we know it? Or would they be a symptom of a world on the brink of apocalypse?

Let me know ...

LMS

Bump ... over Christmas ...

I've done a couple of photos. Both are up.