m. c. de marco

Via Cognition and Culture: io9 charts a statistical correlation between war and zombie movies.

Still, even correcting for the fact that there are more movies being made today, you can see that there are distinctive spikes in zombie popularity - and they always seem to fall slightly after a huge political or social event has caused mass fear, chaos, or suffering.

It appears to be World Zombie Day today, at least in Pittsburgh.

Today on the Daily Zombie, just a few lighthearted zombie links:

• The Zombie Apocalypse in Lego from io9.com
• Better Zombies Through Physics, an ongoing comic at Tor.com
• More reviews of The Living Dead from Night Shade Books
• A zombie lolcat for your shambling pleasure:

In my ongoing zombie research, I came across a three-part YouTube video of Jan Sleutels expounding on Greek Zombies: not your average shambling undead, but Julian Jaynes’ pre-conscious ancient Greeks. If you don’t have time for all three parts, you can get a draft of the paper at his website.

I’ve been wanting to see Fido (rated R for “zombie-related violence”) for a while. I was not disappointed in this cross between Shaun of the Dead and Lassie, although the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes were mixed and heavy with allegations that the movie is one idea stretched too far.

That one idea is the zombie control collar. In a technicolor alternate 1950s, space radiation raises the dead and the terrible Zombie War pushes them back down again. Like WWII, the Zombie War leads to peace and prosperity for the survivors, safe behind their chain-link Iron Curtain, with zombie maids, butlers, and gardeners for all. But whenever someone dies of natural causes or a tame zombie’s collar malfunctions, the traditional cheesy carnage ensues.

I’ve escalated the zombie research in preparation for NaNoWriMo. Here are some links:

• Via Futurismic, a zombie flash story Chip Heads
• io9’s zombie category, with plenty of meaty zombie linkage

On the zombie watch, John Klima at Tor.com reports that The Living Dead zombie anthology is out. Links to free stories, podcasts, and excerpts are collected at John Joseph Adams’ website.