AMC zombie series from Frank 'Majestic' Darabont - The Walking Dead

Remember zombie banks?

oddly my friend just published a zombie novel a few months ago (the reapers are the angels,

a friend of mine is finishing up a literary zombie novel too. i don't think i'm going to tell him about this, since there are some superficial similarities (the ages of the protagonists, for one). :/

Just read a zombie novel, too: 'Rise Again' by Ben Tripp -- not bad. Doesn't do much that's new, but entertaining and engaging and grim enough. And the protag is a female soldier with PTS, and the two main supporting characters are gay (one male, one female), which was unusual.

I HATE people who look down on telly. (Well, not really.)

I think the problem is that all media have their shitty ends of the spectrum, but TV's is much bigger and much worse, just because you have so much time and so many channels to fill. Plenty of shit movies/albums/books, but for the most part those industries don't have quotas to fill.

I agree that TV is totally primo right now. I work for a dvd distributor and I can get my hands on a lot of movie screeners but honestly, I spend so much time watching tv shows that I don't watch a ton of movies any more, not like I used to. And it's not because the movies aren't good. It's just I can't *not* watch my tv shows. There's a few junky shows in there, but for the most part, it's all gold!

that totally came out a lot more dickish than I meant it to

I swear I'm not a dick

I want to bump the person that said something along the lines of "I'm not looking forward to the ILX discussion" but I can't find that post anymore

how about not read the ILX discussion then

you first

re the previous discussion, TV is totally my most-consumed artform at the moment apart from music.

"consumed" like braiiiiiiiins?

hey if you get IFC, try to watch Dead Set, Charlie Brooker's zombie show about life in the Big Brother House after the zombie invasion. 's'fun!

a zombie story in which the survivors achieve some sort of equilibrium w the undead. they're well-defended and well-supplied, surrounded by an sea of hungry corpses, but able to sustain themselves on what they have. it's a delicate balance, though, and the human tendency towards violent conflict threatens it. if you kill one of your fellows, then your group is one less and the zombies one more...

That set-up's happened at least twice now in the Walking Dead comic

Again, that's the premise of "Land of the Dead," which in turn sets it up as an explicit satire of the bourgeoisie and nouveau riche vs. the underclass. And sort of from the zombie perspective, too: zombie African-American gas station attendant leads zombie army horde to reclaim Pittsburgh from the corrupt oligarchy!

walking dead really doesn't seem to concern itself with issues of class at all and race is only rarely touched on. people have a tendency to focus on the zombies.

Yeah, though come to think of it, the characters in the comic are overwhelmingly working class, as far as I remember. At least for the first few dozen issues.

Again, that's the premise of "Land of the Dead," which in turn sets it up as an explicit satire of the bourgeoisie and nouveau riche vs. the underclass. And sort of from the zombie perspective, too: zombie African-American gas station attendant leads zombie army horde to reclaim Pittsburgh from the corrupt oligarchy!

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, November 6, 2010 6:11 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

should watch LotD again, as i remember very little other than that it has dennis hopper and is bad (or maybe i just didn't like it).

yeah josh, you're totally making me wish LotD was better, because it definitely had some cool ideas and potential in it

my son got me a zombie board game for my birthday

My greatest hope for this show is that it will help take zombies back from the realm of the "zeitgeist" and especially the ironically cute and quaint, and make them horror again.

Good luck with that

Shush ;)

i liked the episode that was on tonight. it was engaging. didn't see the first one. big fan of the comics. tuesday morning i go back to the land of no cable so.

it was pretty good. i'm wanting to re-read those issues so i can remember what plots were from the comic and which ones weren't

watching the second ep right now and already even better than the pretty dope first ep

i don't think this episode reflected the comic; as i remember it, there was no "party" and definitely no white power guy.
this was a set piece ep and a little less successful in my eyes than the first one. Went fast though! At this rate, a six episode season isn't going to get past the first ten issues!

oh come on michael rooker vs. a guy in a kangol come on

this show should be called the walking been there done that

what does that even mean

My greatest hope for this show is that it will help take zombies back from the realm of the "zeitgeist" and especially the ironically cute and quaint, and make them horror again.

― kenan, Saturday, November 6, 2010 6:01 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

if anything this is going to hasten the gentrification of the dead. it'll do for zombies what dexter did for torture porn, i.e. normalize it for a mass audience.

did dexter normalize torture porn?

when housewives are kicking back and watching a serial killer carve up hogtied ppl on the regular, I'd say it did

indeed

hell, Dexter completely lost its torture porn edginess around season 3 anyway. i can't remember the last time we got a decent limb-sawing scene.

yeah i was gonna say i've been watching this current season and have yet to the visceralness everyone kept talking about

'The Zombies' by Donald Barthelme is a much funnier 'deconstruction' than the godawaful Shaun of the Dead:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EjWaGv5tE38C&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&dq=the+zombies+donald+barthelme&source=bl&ots=OFeZoNS-OR&sig=DO_wVRDV80TXW-_wMe0T1akfTBU&hl=en&ei=v6XXTNy9DsGN4gb5n6CwBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

i would say that that's a pretty funny story. not laugh out loud funny, but clever in the manner that seems so terribly appealing to people who enjoy feeling more clever than other people. ty

this one kinda made me long for the not-written-by-Frank-Darabont eps to come in the back half of this season.

You watch one of our comedies and you laugh your balls off. You watch a British comedy and you're like "Hmm. *haughty laugh*" It's like reading the New Yorker for two hours.

― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, August 13, 2009 7:15 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

srsly though i love barthelme and that stopped being funny once i got the joke by the second sentence imo

good second episode. cool to see laurie holden show up, i liked her in the shield.

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Can we talk for a minute about the zombies using rocks to break down the department store door? They can use tools, even rudimentary ones? I don't think I've ever seen that from zombies before.

Romero Zombies slowly gained the ability to organize themselves and use rudimentary tools iirc.

crazy racist way too OTT. some cheesy dialogue. still a lot of fun and a very quick hour.

i liked the distant rolling thunder throughout the episode leading up to the downpour.

xpost: first zombie in Night of the Living Dead uses a rock on the window of the car.

Ok, word. Just checking. Carry on.

first zombie in Night of the Living Dead uses a rock on the window of the car.

― circa1916, Monday, November 8, 2010 6:29 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

i love the idea that you effortlessly called this up from your infinite zombie knowledge brain

haha. more like i just watched it last week.

this is pretty good! kinda corny, but lots of fun. i'm glad they're already getting away from the (awful) comics.

my favorite moment in the comic is around like issue 40 when he literally has rick scream "ITS US! WE'RE THE WALKING DEAD!"

Oy