If you’ve been paying even the slightest attention over the past year or so you may have noticed an undercurrent of reverence for the undead. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, zombies are having their moment! They’ve joined the ranks of pirates and ninjas on the super hot fantasy occupation/hobby list–although technically it’s more of a “state of existence” but there’s no need for semantics. I would trace the beginnings of the resurgence of this trend back to the 2003 tome The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (the reader reviews alone are comedy gold).
And then of course, there was Shaun of the Dead and more recent, guerrilla efforts such as this:
But the kicker, is the new sub-genre of Zombie literature. Unlike The Zombie Survival Guide, this sub-grene reinterprets the classics (and by classics I mean Jane Austen, not Night of the Living Dead) by inserting zombies into the plot and cover art. The NYT has a nice little article/blog post by Ben Schott about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (now with “ultra-violent zombie mayhem”), as well as forthcoming, similarly themed books.
Incidentally, I feel it necessary to state for the record that while I endorse this particular musing from Mr. Schott, I cannot abide by the majority of Schott’s Vocab and its insufferable quest to publicize modern portmanteaus and tortured turns of phrase that have no business inserting themselves into the vernacular.
Tags: art direction, cool, Inspiration