After years of food preservation research. Dr. Fickelstein creates a formula that brings food back to life.
Around 2008, I (Tom) went to Elf to get a tattoo. His work blew me away. So here we are many years later and I'm still coming up with crazy ideas. And he brings the ideas to life. Which brings us to the Wiener Apocalypse. I have been doing stand up comedy for awhile. And I had a joke about zombie hot dogs. So next thing you know Elf is tattooing a zombie hot dog on my arm and the idea of the Wiener Apocalypse was born. Elf has been in the comic book industry since the 1990's. His artwork has appeared in (and/or on the cover of) comics published by Image Comics, Basement Comics, London Knight, Brainstorm Comics, Oktober Black Comics, Caliber Comics and Samson Comics. He has also written,illustrated and published his own comic book tilted "Grim City." So when he asked me what I thought about turning the zombie hot dog idea into a comic book. It was a no-brainer. Yes, that was a cheesy zombie joke. I've written the story and Elf has made it come to life with his artwork. We put together some great rewards for backers of this project. We are using Kickstarter to fund the printing of the book. Which will be 32 pages of color and zombies with a twist. We hope you jump on board with the Wiener Apocalypse!
Risks and challenges
We are ready to send this comic to print. Only a few changes will be needed. Like names of characters from our Kickstater project. The only delay would be from a third party printer. That is why we set the October release date. All paintings, shirts and artwork rewards will be shipped out by November.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced its nominees for the 66th Annual Emmy Awards, and The Walking Dead was honored with two nominations for Outstanding Special and Visual Effects in a Supporting Role and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. The nominations are part of 26 total awards AMC received this year, with 16 nominations going toBreaking Bad and 8 to Mad Men.
In the Outstanding Special and Visual Effect’s category, The Walking Dead was nominated for Season 4, Episode 1, “30 Days Without an Accident”, and will compete against the VFX teams from HISTORY’s Vikings, TNT’s Mob City, CBS’s Hawaii-Five-0, Starz’s Da Vinci’s Demons and Starz’s Black Sails.
For Outstanding Sound Editing, the sound editing team for The Walking DeadSeason 4, Episode 8, “Too Far Gone” will contend with the editors from Starz’s Black Sails, HBO’sBoardwalk Empire, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and AMC’s very own Breaking Bad.
The 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast live Sunday, August 25 at 8/7c on NBC.
A satirical post welcomes the metaphorical zombie state experienced by humans in the modern built environment as the path of least resistance for a literal, future zombie state.
The zombie apocalypse has begun. Real people are turning in to zombies around the globe, based on the lull of our current auto-centric and technology-enhanced society. Each day these human-folk wake up in "little boxes" in a row "made of ticky tacky" and go through a litany of mundane routines. They jump into cars to go to jobs for their requisite eight hours. They pass by pitched roofs, colored stucco, and appropriately manicured hedgerows, until they arrive at their places of employment. Their jobs (perhaps in the local city planning office) are defined by activities where action is warranted but thought is not required.
As quasi-figurative zombies, they rubber stamp like drones, scanning over papers and reports, and then addressing over-the-counter applicants like automatons, slipping in to planner-speak (e.g., "You will need a variance to increase your FAR and your proposed multi-modal strategy is encroaching in the ROW.") They end their days by returning home in the isolation of their cars, shutting garage doors, turning on TVs and i-devices, and taking collective Huxlian doses of soma so that they can recharge their batteries and repeat the entire cycle again the next day.
This disembodied, figurative zombie state that our society has facilitated is a sad reality, but it also masks the real zombie epidemic that is already sweeping the globe. Despite public awareness campaigns on television with shows like The Walking Dead, in books like the Zombie Survival Guide, on college campuses with programs in Zombie Studies, in newspapers like the NewYork Times, and on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control andPrevention (CDC) website, we have become culturally numb to the real phenomenon that people are becoming actual zombies.
Yes, fellow citizens, activists, city planners, and urban designers, you read that right. People are actually becoming zombies. The fictional depictions in the media, combined with the societal zombie-like behavior our cities create, mask the darker truth that the dead are quickly becoming reannimated. (For the novice, reanimation is the term for zombification, as in reanimated corpses. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as CDHD or consciousness deficit hypoactivity disorder.)
Research organizations have begun to assemble panels of experts to address the impending biological outbreak that is infecting people and turning them into real zombies (Munz, Hudea, Imad & Smith 2009). Most recent studies have focused on scientific advances to prevent corpse reanimation (Davis 1988); Thomas 2010). However, more recent work evaluates how city design and transportation infrastructure are linked to the spread of the disease (Nuñez, Ravello,Urbina & Perez-Acle 2012). Specifically, this work shows that the disease can spread more rapidly in urban spaces with more traditional urban form and transportation planning practices—places with a business-as-usual focus on travel in cars. Places focused on bike and pedestrian accessibility, however, are more resistant to the impending zombie infestation.
This reality presents a critical challenge. Most cities around the world have not been designed to accomodate zombie-resilient travel modes, therefore making zombie infection rates in urban locales relatively unstoppable and a transition to a zombie society immanent. Some of the most accurate scenes in the 2013 Brad Pitt film World War Z illustrate these concepts with streets clogged by cars, with no route for escape. Conversely, in a scene that shows a military unit silently traveling on bikes to refuel their cargo plane, we see an illustration of bicycle transportation as more effective because of its relative silence.
Put simply, we will all be real zombies soon, because the current urban form is conducive to the rapid spread of zombification. We have designed the ideal city for our future zombie selves. Over the last 50 years, we have focused primarily on cars and fuel-driven transportation improvements as well as circuitous and resource dependent suburban developments. There were many benefits to these development patterns, but one unintended benefit is that we designed cities that are much easier for zombies to infest than they are for humans to inhabit.
Congestion and resource dependency have created a captive audience for a zombie transition—people held captive to the apocalypse in cars. This leads to a series of provocative societal questions, which should be of seminal importance to planners and urban designers: Since we are primed for a zombie transition, why are we trying to reshape many of our cities? Shouldn't planners, architects, and designers be focused on zombie adaptation strategies that recognize the reality of this transition? Perhaps we should continue our current auto-oriented focus, because the job of planning for future zombie inhabitation, what I call the "New Zombie Future" (NZF), has already been done?
Because it is clear that our fate is a societal shift to the NZF, I would argue in favor of acceptance. We have a clear, pragmatic, and cost-effective way forward for our society. We should maintain the status quo of our suburban, auto-oriented communities. We should stop creating conditions that foster movement and interaction among the population, thus breaking us away from our figurative (and future literal) zombie selves. At this point in our societal development, it would be easier to continue on our chosen path of suburbanization and auto-dependency by embracing our real, immanent zombification. We should facilitate the New Zombie Future as we evolve from zombies of abstraction, to zombies in reality.
Contrary to my opinion, there are those who do not agree with the zombie way forward. There are those who want to push back against this vision of the future. There are those who argue that we should try to redesign our cities to make them more resilent to outbreaks of all kinds. They argue that we should redevelop and redesign urban spaces so they are more dense and connected—that we should fight both figurative and actual zombification. These contrarians cite researchfrom places like MIT that suggests clearly-linked, well-connected, multi-modal streets are more conducive to evading and resisiting a zombie attack (Ball, Rao, Haussman & Robinson 2013). They claim these connected streets would slow the infection rate in a zombie epidemic and help fight the apocolypse.
But that argument is not grounded in the reality of our cities and towns. Those are not the kind of streets we have built throughout the United States. As I described in my introduction, we already live a world where suburban development and long commutes encourage zombie-like social isolation. The technology that we claim connects us has us talking with our thumbs more than our mouths. Most of us don't vote, are apathetic, self-centered, and self-serving—we already behave like the zombies we so fear and despise. With this type of behavior, what difference would resistance make? Why would our society agree with highly-connected, walkable streets when they would only prolong the pain and suffering our future generations experience in becoming members of the walking dead?
There are those who argue for the transition to boats, planes, faster trains, a space elevator, the Hyperloop, and other futuristic forms transportation as the keys to more efficient travel and resistance. Dialogue on the CDC website even suggests, "… large, strategic bridges should bedestroyed and ferries be offered in place so thatzombies would be better isolated to land masses." But these ideas, while exciting and novel sounding, are only interim measures. They would only slow the zombie apocalypse and extend humanity for a short time. Ultimately our fate lies in our streets, where we are already designing to facilitate zombie transition. These are the places we are already designing for cars.
So in that case, why not go with it? We now have a great opportunity to continue our business-as-usual strategy. We should build on the type of development patterns we have been working on for almost a century. We should design as many loops and lollipops as possible—build in more dead ends and dangling nodes in our roads. We should stop worrying about mass transit, trip reduction, air quality, or greenhouse gas emissions. We won't need our natural resources after the zombie invasion, and we can even hasten our transition to zombiedom by exploiting them.
God forbid we make the societal shift to cities designed for walking and biking. Those modes may keep us from achieving our future potential as zombies, and without any societal focus on them, in my humble opinion, "resistance is futile" (to quote The Borg, of Star Trek fame). So why should we deny the inevitable? We should simply "awaken the zombie" that already exists within each of us by embracing dependency on fossil fuels and creating places that have less accessibility to goods and services (Koch & Crick 2001). We should focus on the auto—the ideal solution to welcome the New Zombie Future. Why would we resist when we have all the tools at our disposal to thrive in this brave new world?
This was originally to be a zombie movie. After poor screenings, the studio tried to repackage it as science fiction by removing much of the zombie footage, freeze-framing the alien monster during attacks and adding laser beams emanating from its eyes.
I thought while I am busy working on some fun new stuff for you guys to read, I might post a little tid-bit here; a sampler of sorts. Now, this is VIP stuff y’all, I tell you, because the short story I am revealing has not even been published yet! But it will be soon in the very much anticipated post-apocalyptic anthology called ‘Goin’ Extinct’ by the writers of WPaD (Writers, Poets, and Deviants.) Here is our Amazon author page so you can check out all of the other books (proceeds are donated to MS research, a very near and dear cause to me and my family.)
So without further ado, I give you a short story by none other than Jade M. Phillips herself (that would be me…clearly), and it is called Zoila’s Zombie. Mind you, this story is so new and so fresh that this version I am posting had not even been fully edited yet, so please be kind with the comma jokes. Ok. Here goes Nothin…
“Lose Your Mind @ Zombie Day!” is the topic of a program Tuesday, July 22, at the Ogden Farmers’ Library.
Participants, ages 11 to 18, will make a zombie shirt, get zombie makeup and learn the Thriller Dance. Zombie snacks will be served (which do not actually contain human flesh).
The program will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Meeting Room at the library, 269 Ogden Center Road. To register, call (585) 617-6181 or email library@ogdenlibrary.com. For more information about the library, go to ogdenlibrary.com.
Do you want to re-enact the lives of Rick and the other survivors from The Walking Dead right in your backyard without the costs of makeup and other special effects? Then the new Zombie FX Augmented Movie Editor IOS app by Pocket Director is the perfect tool for you. This fresh new app, which allows you to recreate some of the most thrilling Zombie movies such as Zombieland, 28 Days Later and World War Z, makes it possible for you and your friends to become the stars of your own zombie films.
With this app, you can easily create zombie killing scenarios with the choice of rockets, guns and even flame throwers. Almost anything is possible and you can even have the zombies attack your friends. The action scenes are for the most part never ending, and it’s easy to do in just few simple steps: capture a scene shot in your backyard, choose if you would like to have the Zombie running at them or just let the scream of a character set the eerie atmosphere, then finally, let your imagination run wild by adding an un-dead corpse that crawls towards your characters. Not to mention, you can also create scenes from the Zombie’s point of view by presenting the tension and suspense as to who would be its next victim. While the app is aimed to tickle your creativity, it thus enables you to induce the fine style of film making.
The Zombie FX app gives you plenty of creative freedom, while the new Augmented Reality (AR) app allows you to direct a Zombie movie at any location of your choice. Consisting of about forty in-built scenes along with controls for setting, ambiance and characters, the app even considers the present lighting which adjusts to match with the characters, along with adjustments for the depth of field focus, luminosity matching and light source tracking.
Although the app is only available on Apple devices, it’s the first movie editor for handheld devices—and of course—the final product can be shared throughout your social media accounts. Here are the device requirements:
- iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Requires iOS 7.0 or later - 130 MB of space
It’s time for another horror quiz! You can’t go wrong with zombies, but rather than find out how long you’d last I want to know what kind of zombie you’d end up being! So, below is a quiz that figures out precisely that.
I took it and got “You Are A Return Of The Living Dead Zombie! You Are A Disgusting And Vile Zombie But You Have A Great Sense Of Humor!"
Watch out! Zombies have taken over Wisconsin Dells and are causing quite the buzz! Dells Zombie Outbreak is a new attraction addition to the Dells this 2014 season, and is quickly becoming a visitor favorite! Our internet department did a little research ‘field trip’ to get in on the action, and the results are in… a big, big undead thumbs-up!
Zombie Outbreak is a live action zombie experience- you and your team will use state-of-the-art weapons to clear a military base full of the walking dead. This is a real-life video game, a once-in-a-lifetime-experience you don’t want to miss!
Whether you go in alone or with a group of friends one thing is for sure, you won’t be disappointed with what is lurking behind every turn! Choose your package! The Infantry Package is for beginners, and outfits you with a replica short rifle. Packages climb up to $34.99, giving you access to one replica M4 Rifle & Pistol and includes a vest. Upon check-in, you’ll receive your state-of-the-art, replica military weapon rental, receive directions & tips, then head off into the dark abyss of the zombie infested military fortress.
You’ll hear the bang, feel the recoil, and see your muzzle flash as you shoot at the undead and wind your way around the maze-like interior. Rack up your stats by defeating the infiltrating zombies, don’t forget to aim for the head!
Wisconsin Dells needs your help! Do you have what it takes to end this Dells zombie outbreak?
Follow Stillborn, the Master of the Undead, from ground zero to the apocalypse where all humans die and the zombies win.
Stillborn: The First Zombie chronicles the tale of the primary and most dominant member of the undead. After inception with strange afflictions from an unknown disease in 1933, Stillborn is hidden in secret by his farmland parents who are mercilessly killed by the townsfolk for “practicing the Devil’s magic.”
Stillborn then forced into hibernation, lays dormant for over 70 years, only to reemerge as a beastly undead monster with only one thought in his mind; Revenge. Fueled with rage, he devises a plan that will not only kill the descendants of those who murdered his parents, but also infect every living thing on Earth with the disease that has haunted him. Stillborn: The First Zombie is the premiere story that combines all forms of the zombie genre, creating a powerful creature that can not only think and speak, but command those that he has infected.
In the TPB, which consists of the first five issues, we read the first storyline, 'The Trap". "The Trap" is about a group of workers that become trapped inside dying house and are brutally murdered by a ravenous un-dead monster.As they struggle to survive, they discover a haunting history that brought this creature to life and that this zombie is more than just a flesh eating beast, but a cunning and intelligent killer.
The purpose of this campaign to help meet my current demand while creating more. I wanted to be able to connect with my readers and spread the Stillborn virus farther using Kickstarter.
I tested the comic in a dozen different stores in 20 different cities and the comic sold out. I was happy for the news, but had to wait until the last shop paid it's order before I could fill a new one. I love getting on the shelf, but it's a big mountain to climb when you're on your own.
With Kickstarter, I hope to cut out the middle man and work directly with my fans and readers.
Characters:
Marc Franco
After the death of his father, Marc was forced to give up a full scholarship to Harvard Business School so that he may return home to the small town of Heaven's Gate.
Washing away his depression with a few bottles, Marc now resides in a small apartment with his mother. The collapse of '08 put the family plumbing business near the edge of collapse. Now, Marc takes his father's place with severe resentment. That resentment, however, would not last the day as Marc would be placed in his own grave before nightfall.
Daniel Cartwright
Daniel Cartwrightis a proud native of Heaven's Gate, being a descendant to one of the founding families. Daniel spends his days as a local contractor while using is free time to shoot and kill anything that walks or crawls around his backyard.
A man born in the wrong age, Daniel craves the gun slinging times of the Old West, carrying a .357 S&W he calls "Betsy" wherever he goes. While this aging contractor pushes on with his fantasy of older times, in the end, his quick trigger finger will be unable to save his life.
Emily Mills
She was forced to grow up quicker than expected. While holding down a technician job with the Heaven's Gate Phone Company, Emily became the guardian to her teenage brother, Benjamin, after her parents were killed in a car accident.
Small but tough, Emily struggles everyday to make ends meet and put a cap on her little brother's drug use. Her strength will only do little to protect her as she will encounter the worst fate of the group.
Gabriel Ruiz
He became a member of Heaven's Gate in '88 when he migrated from Mexico with his family. Always a hard-working man, Gabriel began working at Franco's Plumbing over ten years ago when Shawn, Marc's father, offered him the job.
Having been a handy man for the local cemetery, Gabriel knows everything there is to know about building and maintaining a home. He adapted to his role at Franco's Plumbing quickly and, after Shawn's death, would become Marc's boss. All of his knowledge and experience will only delay his death for so long.
Nicholas Washington
He has earned the nickname "Gentle Giant" around the lower east side of Heaven's Gate. Abandoned by his parents, Nick grew up with his strict grandmother, ultimately becoming her caretaker and living with her for the rest of his life.
Due to his grandmother's "old fashioned" ways, Nick dropped out of high school and started working construction jobs to help pay the bills. Well known for being able to knock down a wall in record time, Nick is also known for a secret fear of insects. Often the subject of various pranks by co-workers, Nicholas would turn from a Gentle Giant into a Raging Hulk. A flaw that would result in his own horrific fate.
Carlos Gonzalez
He is known in his community for being a happy family man. His parents always taught him the importance of family as he grew up on the Gonzalez Farm just outside of Heaven's Gate. After the birth of his second child, Carlos moved into town so that he might make his own way in the world and learn new ways to help the family business.
After working odd jobs for a couple of years, he landed an apprenticeship with a lead welder and became part of Cartwright's team. Having knowledge about older homes, Carlos was invited to tag along with Daniel to inspect the decaying Thomas house. The acceptance of the invitation would lead Carlos to his own death.
REWARDS:
1 dollar
The Paranoid Package includes a digital copy of issue #1 and a thanks on my blog.
5 dollars
The Scratched package includes a digital copy of issue#1 + a digital copy of Stillborn "The Trap" TPB and a thanks on my blog.
10 dollars
The Bitten Package includes:
Digital Copy of issue #1 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB
15 dollar
The Bitten Package includes:
Printed & Digital Copy of issue #1 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB
25 dollars
The Almost Dead Package includes:
Printed & Digital Copy of issue #1 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB 11" x 17" Autographed Poster Print (1) Survival Pack: 1 Magnet, 1 Postcard, 1 bookmark & 1 button.
35 dollars
The UnDead Package includes:
Printed & Digital Copy of issue #1 - 5 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB (2) 11" x 17" Autographed Poster Print (2) Survival Pack: 1 Magnet, 1 Postcard, 1 bookmark & 1 button.
40 dollars
The Flesh-Eater Package includes:
Printed & Digital Copy of issue #1 - 5 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB (3) 11" x 17" Autographed Poster Print (2) Survival Pack: 1 Magnet, 1 Postcard, 1 bookmark & 1 button.
50 dollars
The Infector Package includes:
Printed & Digital Copy of issue #1 - 5, Issue 1 will be an original sketch cover Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB (3) 11" x 17" Autographed Poster Print (2) Survival Pack: 1 Magnet, 1 Postcard, 1 bookmark & 1 button.
75 dollars
The Horde Leader Package includes:
Printed Sketch Covers & Digital copies of issue #1 - 5 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB (5) 11" x 17" Autographed Poster Print (3) Survival Pack: 1 Magnet, 1 Postcard, 1 bookmark & 1 button.
100 dollars
Master of the Dead Package includes:
Printed Sketch Covers & Digital copies of issue #1 - 5 Digital Copy of The Trap TPB Printed, Signed & Numbered copy of The Trap TPB (5) 11" x 17" Autographed Poster Print (3) Survival Pack: 1 Magnet, 1 Postcard, 1 bookmark & 1 button. Hardcover copy of "Stillborn:Classified" containing the original film script and unpublished Stillborn novel.
There are only 10 of these available because I don't want anyone to read "Stillborn: Classified". These are my personal reference materials, unedited and unproofed, and the Stillborn novel outlines the story for the second graphic novel. The script and book are 2/3 of the "Stillborn Bible". The other 1/3 are my original rough sketches of the book.
I was planning to release the "Stillborn Bible" at a later date, but I added the written portion to the package as an incentive for true Stillborn fans.
Thank you for reading this far. Please back the project or tell your "zombie friends" to check it out.
Risks and challenges
Stillborn is finished. The issues and TPB are already available, so there is no risk. You back up the comic, I send out the order, I sign the comic and mail it to you. Simple. Easy.
I use anything extra to help create book II: "Raising The Dead."
And you will get the first exclusive copy before I send it to the shops, but that's my next campaign.
A Quick Note on Sketch Covers: I learned how to draw using a computer. I did all the artwork digitally using a pen tablet. There are only 2 actual hand drawn pages of Stillborn. SO, drawing on paper is odd for me. The sketch covers are given extra time for that reason. I do sketch covers. No problem. I will accept requests, because I love my fans. Just a heads up.
