Weird of Oz Dissects a Zombie!
Now that zombie apocalypse has gotten its most mainstream imprimatur with a big-budget summer blockbuster starring Brad Pitt, I thought I’d take a break from my reading of Arak comic books this week to chime in on the trend. I’ll also revisit and share my original review of the book on which Pitt’s new star vehicle is “based” (and, for those of you who have read World War Z, you’ll know why I put that word in quotes).
I’ve been a fan of zombie films since I was a teen (back in the ‘80s, Barbara Mandrell sang, “I was country when country wasn’t cool”; I guess I could say much the same thing about zombies), ushered into the land of the undead by late-night viewings of Night of the Living Dead (1968) and White Zombie (1932, starring Bela Lugosi, and that’s way old-school).
Zombies are big business these days, the virus finding new vectors to infect untapped audiences and turn them into fans. This unprecedented outbreak began in the early years of the new century with some very well-done and popular films including 28 Days Later (2002), Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake) and Shaun of the Dead (2004). Romero himself, the granddaddy of the whole genre, returned with Land of the Dead (2005) and a couple of subsequent installments in his ever-expanding zombie mythos.
More recently, the comic-book series The Walking Dead became a big hit among readers, then went on to be adapted into the AMC series that is currently one of the most popular shows on cable television. Zombie novels have become so ubiquitous, they now constitute their own sub-genre, like vampire or werewolf novels. You might also say zombies have now “jumped the shark,” following the lead of Twilight into teen romance territory (Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, as well as, apparently, a slew of others in this latest fad. I haven’t read any of these, but I can only imagine: “Is that part of your lower intestine leaking from your abdomen, or are you just happy to see me?”).
‘Magic’ is an elastic metaphor. Among its many possible uses is that of a descriptor for something that happens in performance, especially live performance: the magic of an actor possessed by a character, the magic of a given moment invested with wonder and remaining in the memory, though inevitably passing away. The magic of stage magicians isn’t in the sleight-of-hand; it’s in the effect on the audience. The related magic of the carnival — the amusement park, the theme park — is a kind of second-person secondary-world magic. You are there. You are in a conjured fantasyland. A circus, in this reading, isn’t about the stink of animals or the scutwork of putting up tents and preparing performance spaces; it’s about the feeling the show tries to inspire. It is, potentially, for some, a venue for magic — transient, susceptible to thinning, but capable of generating wonder.