Matt Mogk - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies

First and foremost, thanks to all the members of Zombie Research Society from around the world for sharing my passion for zombie science, survival, and pop culture. Without you, this project would never have gotten off the ground. In particular, special acknowledgement goes to Lisa Bolton and Mikey Taylor for helping keep ZRS headed in the right direction. And to John Farrell, Lisa Bane, Zoe Mora, Marcus Mooers, and the other dedicated local chapter leaders, both in the United States and abroad.

To the ZRS Advisory Board past and present, including Daniel Drezner, Scott Kenemore, Bradley Voytek, Timothy Verstynen, Brendan Riley, Mike Harris, and Peter Cummings, thank you for your commitment to the mission of cultivating zombie scholarship and respect in the arts and sciences. Additional recognition goes to Steven Schlozman for your enthusiasm and encouragement, and to George Romero for creating the monster that has become my obsession.

A special thank-you goes to Max Brooks for your important contributions to this book, your broad support, and your friendship.

I greatly appreciate the dozens of scholars, authors and artists who agreed to participate in this project, such as Robert Kirkman, William Stout, Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Matt Schantzen, Scott Bowen, Leif Becker, Josh Taylor, Lucas Culshaw, and Samuel Stebbins. Thanks to Frank Weimann for getting the process going, to Chris Easley for your thoughtful draft review, and to Jennifer Heddle for guiding it to a successful end.

And finally a debt of gratitude is owed to my friends and family for letting me endlessly go on about zombies, especially The Troll, who gets the brunt of it on a daily basis. Thanks to T for sounding the alarm and Majaraj for putting out fires at the finish line. To Grimm, Danger, and Annie, thanks for keeping me on my toes even though sometimes my toes get tired. Thanks to Don and Dianne for the American food. Thanks to my parents for pretty much everything.

But most of all thanks to Seamus for hanging in until I got things figured out.

T he Oxford English Dictionary is widely regarded as the premier dictionary of the English language and is rated the most comprehensive dictionary on the planet by Guinness World Records. It includes specific definitions for countless obscure and unusual monsters, including the infamous chupacabra of Latin America and Bigfoots Himalayan cousin, the albino yeti. But it does not include an accurate definition of the modern zombie. It instead focuses solely on the slavelike zombie of Afro-Haitian tradition that is completely unrelated to the modern zombie of contemporary pop culture.

zombie (zom-bie)

pronunciation: zmb

1. A corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.

2. A mixed drink consisting of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice.

Informal:

A person who is or appears to be lifeless, apathetic, or completely unresponsive to his or her surroundings.

A computer controlled by another person without the owners knowledge and used for sending spam or other illegal or illicit activities.

Unfortunately, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is no better. A search for zombie only turns up results for the Haitian zombie and the zombie computer. Not exactly what you might call encyclopedic results.

Does this mean that every movie, video game, event, and organization that this book focuses on simply doesnt exist? Are the tens of millions of people who participate in zombie walks, zombie proms, zombie pub crawls, zombie conventions, and zombie film festivals across the planet gathered to express their interest in a nonthing? Or, instead, is the modern zombie being overlooked? It seems that billions of dollars in annual revenue across multiple platforms still cant put the modern zombie officially on the map.

Based on an extensive study of the modern zombies evolution over the past half century and on countless interviews with zombie fans and scholars across the globe, here is the first and most authoritative definition:

The modern zombie is a relentlessly aggressive, reanimated human corpse driven by a biological infection.

This definition is intended to be narrow enough to clearly identify the modern zombies unique characteristics and broad enough to apply equally to the original Night of the Living Dead as to the zombie films being conceived and produced today. Furthermore, by breaking down the definition into its component parts, three key elements emerge against which all manner of creature can be quickly and easily judged.

These three definitional elements of the modern zombie are (1) it is a reanimated human corpse, (2) it is relentlessly aggressive, and (3) it is biologically infected and infectious.

Zombies occupy the decaying shell of what was once human. They inhabit corpses of flesh, blood, and bone, which makes their systems imperfect. So while they may be relentlessly determined, they are far from invincible. Zombies have a limited life span, given that their bodies are rotting as human corpses do, and they operate under the same laws of science and reason that all worldly beings must operate under.

Whether the undead scourge is created and spread by bite, by blood, by radiation, or on the wind, zombies are first and foremost defined by their relentless aggression. You cant negotiate with a zombie. You cant tell a zombie what to do. A zombie has single-minded focus. It will never stop. It will never surrender. A zombie will continue to move toward its goal at any cost.

The modern zombie is biological in nature, not supernatural or magical. This unique characteristic allows it to be studied from a scientific perspective and is also an essential element in our understanding of how the condition of being a zombie occurs. The prevailing theory is that the zombie state is transmitted by an infectious contagion that readily spreads to new hosts. We call it the coming zombie pandemic.

Known as the Cemetery Zombie, actor Bill Hinzman played the first-ever modern zombie to appear anywhere when he lurched on the screen in the opening moments of Night of the Living Dead. As part of George Romeros core production team on that film, his name will forever be linked to the iconic monster he helped bring to life.

Hinzman worked behind the camera with Romero on future projects before writing, directing, and starring in a lackluster rip-off of Night called FleshEater in 1988.

ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH TAYLOR

R omero didnt think the flesh eaters he created were zombies because prior to Night of the Living Dead the world only knew zombies to be soulless slaves of the Haitian voodoo tradition, magically brought back from the dead to do the bidding of their masters, usually as menial labor. In fact, other than their shared name, there is no connection between the voodoo zombie and the modern zombie.

Unlike actual corpses rising from the grave, voodoo zombies are induced through a mixture of drugs, religious ritual, cultural belief, and spiritual possession. After being put into a trancelike state that approximates a coma, victims awaken and are told that their souls have been taken from their bodies. Then, to keep them under control, they are regularly fed the hallucinogenic drug datura, also known as the zombie cucumber.