Hordes of Hellish and Vile Things,

The time has come once again for your good friend Obvious Zombie (<-- me) to take your hand and lead you through the Zombie Zeitgeist. We must move quickly, for there is a lot to cover --movies, science, flash mobs, comics... What, I can't have your hand? I'll give it back when I'm done with it. I swear.How about a thigh?...

I feel it’s my duty to bring a newly formed governmental agency to your attention. The U.S. Department of Zombie Affairs, or USDZA (affectionately pronounced Us Does), has been quietly recruiting unassuming police cadets, top-of-the-class boot camp soldiers, and first-year sanitation employees to round out their sub-management and fill their rank and file.

Doesn’t seem like they’re assembling an outreach team, huh?

‘Permissum somnus subsisto quietus’ …anyone know what that means?

Anyhoo, I don’t know much else about them, save the fact that since I myself AM a zombie (one with his own blog no less), you will doubtless find me crossing paths with their agents in very the near future.

…

I Kid, I Kid!! Our very own Dr. Geek, Ph.D made up that awesome agency (and masterful logo) in my honor. I got the feeling if I didn’t call it a bluff, people would fucking believe that shit!

Check out this cool-ass video that some ‘live’ person from MySpaceTV sent in for good ol’ ObZomb to cream his jeans over. Contained therein is bits with master zombie director George A. Romero introducing his newest undead effort interspersed with some behind-the-scenes footage from the first week of filming.

Written and directed by Romero, Diary of the Dead follows a troupe of film students making a horror movie in the woods, who are attacked by Zombies.

My brain-eating brothers and soulless sisters formulated into a capitulating caravan of crazed corpses throughout the streets of metropolitan London recently. Organized via the Internet, the gathering was to mark both the release of the film Zombie Diaries, and to attempt to break the “Zombie Walk” record of 894, set last year in Pittsburgh, PA.

Who says Zombies have no brains, huh? Ok, maybe some of us don’t technically have any left, but at least we don’t use dial-up. [Link]

The survivalists over at The Zombiephiles have compiled a handy-dandy list of ten things they say you should NOT do during a zombie outbreak.

I advise you to take a moment to study it, it might just save your life someday … soon. mwuah ha haaa. [Link]

I know it’s not about Zombies but I fucking LOVE Steve Niles, so deal with it!

The long night of blood has begun! The first two installments of the exclusive fearnet.com series, 30 Days of Night: Blood Trails, are available online RIGHT! NOW!

If you like vampires, horror movies, and Steve Niles, I suggest that you take a few moments and check ’em out. Additional mini-sodes are set be released over the seven weeks leading up to the theatrical release of 30 Days of Night.

Pink Raygun takes us to school for a little learnin’ with their latest installment of Ask an Amateur Scientist: Zombie Edition.

Follow along with the self-styled ‘science’ of Brian Thompson as he takes us on a journey from Zack Snyder‘s Dawn of the Dead to Gilgamesh in an effort to debunk the existence of Zombies.

Um, hello… Zombie <----

Discover Magazine Online has an interesting article that breaks down lessons that we can learn about consumer culture, science, and the soul from watching Zombie movies.

They called me crazy, but never did I waver from my staunch position that Zombie films are very educational. [Link]

Just got word that pre-order for the initial print-run of upcoming anthology series Jesus Hates Zombies: Those Slack-Jaw Blues, has sold out. The 138-page collection from the mind of Stephen Lindsay contains 17 original ZombCom (look it up!) stories from over a dozen up-and-coming artists and writers. We GoDs will be publishing our review of it as soon as it’s in our rotted little mitts, but to tide you over until then, we were fortunate enough to get said rotted mitts on a exclusive 12-page JHZ bonus story that is slated to be included as part of Alterna Tales Anthology Vol. 2 in October.

So, making his debut in the Zombie Round-Up, here’s a review of that bonus meat-erial by Geeks of Doom’s resident Ph.D. Dr. Geek (for Z round-up purposes, let’s assume the D in Ph.D. stands for deceased.)

Without further adieu, la presenta…

Jesus. Zombies. Sasquatch. These are three words that you do not often lump together. Yet, that is what Stephen Lindsay and Laurent Monardo have chosen as the subject of the first installment of their new comic “Jesus Hates Zombies… And Sasquatch.” In it, Jesus has returned to an Earth full of zombies, and must (along with his zombie sidekick Laz — Laz, Lazarus, get it?) find a small group of Christian believers holed-up in a Church somewhere who will help him end the zombie menace. It begins very well with a close up of Jesus’s eyes as he narrates “Ever ask yourself ‘how the hell did I get here?'”. The art and sentiment of that panel have an edge that should carry the journey much further along than it really does. Part of that is because Jesus here is a sort of everyman/action hero. He fights. He tracks. He goes to therapy (“You know you really don’t do much for my self-esteem. My therapist calls people like you ‘negative-influencers'”). He’s an ordinary, common sort of figure. But how divine can the Son of God be while saving the world from zombies, you ask? I don’t know… but the line between ironic comedy and cheap laughs at the expense of religion can be awfully hard to find at times. For “Jesus Hates Zombies” to be a success, it needs to walk that line carefully. It does so successfully (for the most part) in this first installment, but whether it can keep up that level of quality remains to be seen.

[Also, keep an eye out for T. E. Pouncey’s upcoming 11 Questionsâ„¢ interview with Mr. Lindsay real soon.]

Scott Bateman makes a funny. Watch. Laugh.

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Remember what good ol’ ObZomb said last time — Zombie is the new Black.

Until next we meet, my putrid posse.
–Obvious Zombie