Wordpress is a wonderful thing.  It even lets the mortality-challenged members of our society have their say.

Check it out – a zombie’s blog!

I found this blog on zombies in the archives of a great site called The Laboratorium, put together by James Grimmelmann, an Associate Professor from NY Law School.  His thoughts on the concept of zombism as it relates to philosophy, moralism and the law have an eerie parallel to the implications posed by Dead America.  You can guess why it piqued my interest then.

Grimmelmann ends the blog with some open-ended questions on the how the undead state works in terms of law (no suprises given his profession).  He asks whether the contractually correct term ‘reasonable man’ should be swapped with ‘reasonable zombie’, something that would have ramifications in a law sense.   Fascinating.  In Dead America, the zombies are not recognised by the law when they relive, and since it’s only been twenty years since the dead came back to life, the Dead Rights movement hasn’t taken off yet.  The dead are still the minority.  Grimmelmann’s idea of what would happen if a zombie contested its own will is a reality.

And this made me think about how stories of undead have led to an evolution of the zombie.  Take George A Romero’s film Land of the Dead, a popcorn horror with some nice touches, such as fireworks dazzling zombies and the living holed up in a fortified city while the dead roam free.  But the nicest touch was how ‘Big Daddy’ learned to use weapons, rationalise to protect himself and his fellow undead, and even objectively seek out revenge.

Zombies are evolving in every story they appear in, and maybe it won’t be too long before we see a Romero zombie acting like a Grimmelmann zombie.  Can you imagine it?

A slathering, monsterous zombie accused of murder gets off because his defence lawyer proves it was temporary insanity.  An undead rockstar known for his grating, Rammstein-esque vocals, goes on tour because his contract isn’t up get.  You line up at McDonald’s behind an undead pensioner who orders a quarter brainer with cheese, ’cause some smart medical corporation found a loophole in stem cell cloning and patented it.

The possibilities are endless.  And I can’t wait.

Adria Garcia's pic 'Brainstorming' makes me wonder what snacks undead office-workers would eat for the 3 o'clock pick-me-up.

You can’t beat it when people’s love of horror overrides fashion sense.

Check this out

The dead are walking the earth…and they’re craving German braaaainsss!

In an effort to give something back to the world, the Dead Letter Centre now has a special section just for fan fiction.  Check it out if you don’t believe me.

The fan fiction page is for you.  While we’d love to see stories and fictional pieces written in homage to the world of Dead America, the page is also open to any zombie-related fiction that fills your imagination.  Anything and everything zombie is welcome.

The page features two pieces of fiction already – the unfinished novella, Heaven for the Dead, and a short story Chuck - for your reading pleasure.

If you have any fan fiction you’d like to see on the site, send it through to lukekeioskie@hotmail.com, and you too can make your mark in Dead America.

In my endless searching for zombie-related information for my website I came across this on the ubiquitous Wikipedia – zombie computers!  Of course, in this context, a zombie refers to a computer that has been overtaken by a hacker and is being used for malicious purposes, i.e. sending shiteloads of porn spam, ripping off internet banking passwords, and generally making itself an online nuisance without the user even knowing.

Image from flickr.com/Unhindered By Talent

But reading up on zombie computers, one thing stuck out for me – the fact that the owners of the PC are usually completely unaware their computer is a zombie.  And this made me wonder if there are other types of zombie computers out there – or, rather, if my own computer is a zombie and I don’t even know it.

Sometimes when I shut down my PC, it says it’s going to install updates.  I didn’t tell it to do that.  Hell, I didn’t even go out and find these supposed updates for it to update in the first place.

My internet browser informed me this morning that it had upgraded to the latest version of itself – I never asked it to do that, either.  There’s a small part of me that misses the old version.  Not that I can tell the difference between the two anyway…

And don’t get me started on Teevo!  A digital recorder that takes it upon itself to tape television shows it THINKS you might like to watch, given what you’ve taped in the past.  That’s.  Just.  Spooky.

But all these thoughts took me to somewhere I didn’t really want to go today.  It made me wonder if maybe there is no such thing as a zombie computer, but rather a zombie computer-user.

I sit here, typing away, watching the screen, absorbed.  I can go hours without eating, drinking, talking (at least not via the keyboard).  I blog, I read, I download, I upload.  And to the observer, I’m just staring and staring and staring at a screen.  Like, you guessed it, a zombie.

If a zombie is a dead person obsessed with brains…what does that make a zombie computer-user?  A living person obsessed with pixels?

(cue stereotypical zombie voice): I must eat BLOOOOOGS!

Just thought I’d pop this up to give you a taste of Dead America, soon to be published by Severed Press.  This is the (possible) cover design, as created by the one, the only, Jeremy ‘Dr Soda’ Thompson.

Artwork by Jeremy Thompson

Drop us a line and let us know what you think.  Personally, I love it.

Had to put this in:

Make your own zombie with the Zombatar!

I had to have a go.

Zombie Andy Warhol

Enjoy.

Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be another thing creators can do with zombies, you happen across Popcap Games’ website and see this:

Popcap Games

Plants vs Zombies

Weird, huh?  Mind you, I love the idea that a ‘mob of fun-loving zombies’ is about to kick your ass, and all you have up your sleeve is an ‘arsenal of zombie-zapping plants’.  Riiight.

But, check out the video ‘preview’ of the game (click the arrow) – Zombie Bobsled Team!!!!

It’s even got its own microsite, check it out.

What will they think of next?

I read with interest this article on PhD student Mark David Ryan and his study into Australian horror movies at the Queensland University of Technology.

Read the article

As a fiction-worker, hearing that a creative industry is booming – especially one from an oft-forgotten genre such as horror – is great news.  But the most interesting part of Ryan’s studies is his reference to the rise of zombie films being a result of 21st Century paranoia stemming from 9/11, terrorism and social anxiety.

flickr.com/digital sextant

Haven’t we always been paranoid and anxious?  What does 2009 have to do with a condition that is undeniably human and irrevocably inescapable?  Name me a year when people haven’t been socially anxious and I’ll call you a liar-liar-pants-on-fire.

You could argue that the Romero brand of zombie narratives stemmed from the social paranoia of decades ago – not a new thing, being afraid of civilisation – and that there is no such thing as a ‘re-surgence’ of undead stories.  These narratives have always been floating around in one guise or another, and no doubt always will be.

Whatever the case, at the very least it’s refreshing to see academic exploration of narrative concepts going beyond the gore-fest image zombies have.

What’s next, a Masters in Vampirism?  Where do I sign up?  As long as I don’t have to read Twilight, I’m there.

Welcome to the Dead Letter Centre.

While this blog is specifically linked to Dead America it’s also your one-stop-shop for anything and everything related to my favourite monster – the zombie.

Thanks to web-pal Dr Soda for the design – let’s get to it.