Land Down Undead
After a furious stint of hard work I have finally released my Zombie Comedy Backpacking Guide to Australia: Land Down Undead. It is out now on Amazon for Kindle and as a paperback. I will follow with other eBook formats in a few months.
“Why would anyone want to write a Zombie Comedy?” you might ask.
Or
“What is a Zombie Comedy?”
Well, those are both interesting questions, both of which I find myself answering a lot. In a sense zombies were always about comedy, they are shambling brainless relics of humanity with one thing on their minds: eating your flesh. Zombie films are in a sense a combination of slapstick humor with grotesque imagery. We are transfixed by the sheer stupidity and hopelessness of the situation.
At some point in the history of zombie literature the connection with comedy became more explicit. A film like Shaun of the Dead, revels in the slapstick aspects of zombie movement and behavior. The film Zombieland, uses zombies as an excuse to make humorous observations about modern society. The film Fido, uses zombies as a vehicle to do an amusing spoof of the cross social-class love story. The many books of Max Brooks use zombies as a vehicle to perform an intelligent and amusing critique of the state of modern society and global politics.
These are all fine example of the emerging high art form of zombie comedy. Call it Zomedy, Zomedie or Zom Com. It offers a chance to take this world, twist it slightly and see what pops out.
The Backpacker’s Guide to the Land Down Undead is my own addition to the genre. A brief and whimsical tale about the shallow world of zombie tourism in Australia.
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