BEAUOLOGY 101: R-E-S-P-E-C-T: ZOMBIE style

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Wynonna Earp

by beau Smith

In the pop culture world of horror, being a zombie is always shown as the bottom of the boot. In fact, that’s normally where you end up if you’re a zombie –  at the bottom of somebody’s boot.

If you’re a zombie in the comics, the movies, on TV, or in a novel, you’re normally shown as not being very bright, you have a plodding, heavy-footed walk and your hygiene stinks — literally. Your oratory skills suck and you have skin that a leper would shun. I know these things. I’ve shackled zombies in my own stories with these clichés in my IDW publishing series, Wynonna Earp as well as in person Gardner: Warrior during my run on it at DC Comics. Why? Well, because it was the easy way. (Even I look for the easy way now and then.)

In horror, the vampires are the elite. like zombies, they’re also the undead, but they dress nice, have a way with the ladies and are well spoken world travelers that sleep all day and party all night. how unfair is that if you’re a zombie?

Even the rest of the lower level monsters have it better than zombies. The hunchback assistants get to work with the best mad scientists in the monster medical field. Goblins run in gangs and are always laughing at everyone else and what about the Frankenstein Monster? He’s nothing a lot more than a patched together zombie, but he gets to play the “Misunderstood Card” like it was an automatic full house.

Guy Gardner: Warrior #22. Story-Beau Smith. Art-Mitch Byrd

Over at DC Comics, Solomon Grundy has been given the spotlight time and time again. He’s probably the most high profile zombie in comics. The bad thing is that if you really stop to study Grundy you’ll find that he’s nothing a lot more than a pale-faced extraordinary Hulk, dressed like Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies in search of a tanning bed.

Over at marvel they tried a semi-original spin when they turned a lot of of their super-heroes into zombies, but then again, they’ll try anything. They’ve done the gender-bender turn and even turned their heroes into apes.

As a writer, the case of zombies make me yearn to do a story where zombies are no longer entrapped by the “business as usual” mold they’ve been shoved in. Why can’t the rotting undead be worldly and sophisticated? just because they crave human flesh doesn’t indicate they have to eat with their hands and slobber. other writers make vampires look so sexy when they suck blood from a victim’s neck. Why can’t the same slant be made with zombies? picture a zombie 5-star eatery where there are fine linen table clothes, mood-making candle light, and human flesh cut with sophisticated cutlery and washed down with fine white wine or aged liquor. Oh, I smell zombie respect being cooked up.

Vampires and werewolves get romantic love lives written for them. Where’s the dating game for zombies? What a tragic soap opera that would make. even The Mummy had some romance in his securely wrapped up world. somebody needs to show some love to the zombies.

There’s a lot more to zombies than sunken-eyed, stiff-walkers slowly chasing moronic humans through a mall. You’ve all seen that Michael Jackson Thriller video – zombies can dance! Not all of them are as slow as a snail on downers. everybody in comics talks about how everything is high concept and writers think out of the box. Well, here’s a real chance for someone to not only think out of the box, but jump out of it as well.

Wynonna Earp page

When was the last time you saw a zombie in the role of the hero? now there’s a novel idea. I’m sure somebody out there has written a zombie wearing a “white hat”. We just need to see a lot more of that kind of thinking. The great thing about fiction is that there are no limits. creative freedom isn’t dealt out with a teaspoon, we need to use a steam shovel and really dig up some new ideas on the way zombies are written.

Not every zombie has to be a standard rotting flesh, gross, missing eyeball zombie. Why can’t one be a lot more like Angel as in the Joss Whedon vampire TV series where when need be, the hero can turn into a zombie when needed to kick bad person butt? how hard is that? For once I’d love to see the vampires at the bottom of the food chain. Those snobs have been living the high life of the undead life for far too long. It’s time for zombies to have a little cake with their human hand sandwich. We need some equal rights for our zombie friends that might like to eat their human’s skinless and not have to worry about all the preservatives and trans fat that comes with eating on the run. It works with chicken at KFC, why not on a zombie’s healthy menu?

I know as a writer I’m going to work harder to throw some fictional respect to the zombies. I hope as readers, you’ll expect and demand a lot more from your zombie requests in the fiction you get and read.

Better to be undeadthan unread.

Your very much alive, amigo,

Beau Smith
The flying Fist Ranch
www.flyingfistranch.com