ZombieMall.com Blog

 My friend Marie over at Comedy Central knows how into zombies and horror I am, so she gave me an update to something truly fun that is about to take place!  Thanks Marie!

 NEW YORK CITY GETS FREAKED OUT!

ZOMBIES, VAMPIRES AND FREAKS INVADE THE BIG APPLE

IN THE NEW COMEDY CENTRAL^® ANIMATED COMEDY SERIES

“UGLY AMERICANS” TO DEBUT MARCH 17 AT 10:30 P.M.

                                           Ugly Americans Extended Scenes

                                   Click here to go directly to Ugly Americans Extended Scenes

Take the Big Apple, add every horrifying beast, science-fiction freak and fantasy faerie, shake thoroughly and you’ve got “Ugly Americans,”

a new animated comedy series premiering on COMEDY CENTRAL on March 17 at 10:30 p.m. 

The series follows Mark Lilly (voiced by Matt Oberg), a social worker at the “Department of Integration,” as he helps new citizens, both human and “other,”

adapt to hectic life in New York City. There are easier tasks than weaning vampires off blood, socializing land-whales and housebreaking werewolves,

but Mark is up to the challenge. Between his stressful job, a zombie roommate and a demon girlfriend, Mark’s lucky if he can sneak in a few minutes of sleep.

But who can sleep when there’s a drop-dead gorgeous mermaid sitting at the bar? 

In addition to Mark Lilly, the “Ugly Americans” cast features Randall Skeffington, Mark’s zombie roommate, Callie Maggotbone, Mark’s demon boss and office fling, Leonard Powers, an aging drunken wizard, Twayne, a terrorizing demonic bureaucrat and Lt. Grimes, a law-enforcement officer who despises non-humans. 

The debut episode introduces lead character and “Department of Integration” (D.O.I.) agent Mark Lilly dealing with aggressive sexual advances from his demon boss Callie, while trying to do his work finding jobs for the city’s newest citizens. Lilly is also developing a reluctant friendship with his zombie roommate Randall, who he found on Craig’s List, as well as battling rival Grimes and his thug squad, who are apprehending “illegals” to fill a quota. Future episodes feature Mark counseling a young woman who wants to become a vampire and Callie going baby-crazy after Mark starts fostering a demon orphan. 

David M. Stern, series developer and executive producer, began his career writing for “The Wonder Years” during its first three seasons.  He went on to serve as a producer on “The Simpsons” during the first four seasons where he wrote many memorable episodes. He has served as a co-executive producer on the premiere season of the USA hit series “Monk,” as well as a co-executive producer on the Fox series “Oliver Beene.” 

Series-creator Devin Clark has been involved with a broad range of television projects including work with HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon, TCM and The Cartoon Network, applying his design and narrative skills to everything from network graphics to traditional cartoons.His films and animation have been featured in Stash magazine, Animation Block Party, Rooftop Films, Ottawa Film Festival, Platform and Atom Films.

Necrotic Tissue..  What can I say about this magazine that I’ve not said before?  For those not hanging on every post, you can check out my earlier mention of them here.  I’ll go on to add that R. Scott McCoy certainly has place into my hands something of a brilliant-portable-chunck of entertainment.  I love short fiction, especially horror, and Necrotic Tissue does not disappoint!

But (yeah, you are not supposed to start a sentence off with that word; ‘but’, but…) I’ve got a very personal connection with this specific issue.  If you avidly turn your copy to page 11 you will find a quaint little piece called Five or Six Feet Away.  I wrote that.  Yes, yes I did.  Look at me ma!  I’m a published writer now! I even have a shirt to prove it!  I’ve got the magazine neatly framed and hanging on the wall here in my office, brings a smile to my face each time I look at it.  But what’s more is it brings inspiration.  Mr. McCoy took a chance on me and he will never know what that has done for my self-esteem.  Okay, enough about me, back to the magazine itself.

This issue, issue 9, is chock full of great horror.

We’ve got zombies, the fear of God, wolves, psychopaths, ghosts, bloody monsters, and oh ever so much more.  Like I said, it’s chock full of fun horror!

If you are not already a subscriber, I highly recommend you grabbing one.  You can do so at the Necrotic Tissue Website.

NT is a Stygian Press publication.  Be sure to also keep an eye out for their first graphic novel, Bad Billy coming soon!

Until then, stay sane and stay scary!

Welcome to the weird and wild world of ESOTERIA-LAND! You won’t find it on any map, but you will find it between the covers of this book. ESOTERIA-LAND is the realm of Michael McCarty’s nonfiction. Over the years he has written hundreds of interviews, articles, essays and reviews, and he has selected an authentic, eclectic, and eccentric array of these works for your entertainment - and education, too. You’ll learn surprising things about your favorite actors, comedians, musicians, artists, movies, CDs and books that you never knew before.

Inside you will find interviews with Tommy Chong, Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues, Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, Bobcat Goldthwait, Mojo Nixon, Terry Pratchett, Alan Dean Foster, Forry Ackerman, and many more. You’ll learn tantalizing tidbits about Roger Corman’s movies, Red Dwarf, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the writing careers of Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, and Richard Laymon. You’ll find out why world-famous Masters of the Macabre like Halloween, receive helpful hints on how to write Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy, and discover new facts and insights as Michael reviews a variety of CDs, movies, and books.

An introduction by scream-queen Linnea Quigley and afterword by The Amazing Kreskin round out this amazing collection. Welcome to ESOTERIA-LAND, but be warned . . . you’ll enjoy it so much, you may never want to leave!

Just $24.95 plus postage

You can pick it up at Amazon.com here: ESOTERIA-LAND ~ Michael McCarty

Paperback: 366 Pages

Publisher: BearManor Media

Language: English

ISBN-10: 159393505

ISBN-13: 978-1593935009

Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches

Nothing will compare! This is a celebration of all things zombie and is a challenge that will be mastered. Come dead or alive Saturday, March 13^th when doors open at 9pm to ages 21 and up. Pre-sale tickets are $5 and can be purchased through www.benderstavern.com . Day of show tickets are sold at the door for $8.  Spectators who arrive zombiefied will receive $3 off the ticketed door price. For more information and updates about the show visit www.fashionzombies.webs.com

ZombieMall.com’s Haiti Response Fundraiser

Zombies and Haiti go back a very long time. With our site taking a focus on zombies in general, this tragic event that has taken place in Haiti seems a logical place for us at ZombieMall to turn our eye to. As you know ZombieMall is a site of entertainment, but all kidding aside, our hearts go out to the citizens of Haiti. It is being reported that the death count is in the tens of thousands. With two massive earthquakes hitting the area, many of the survivors now find themselves with no shelter, food, or even clean water.

ZombieMall simply wants to urge it’s patrons to help out in any way they can. We have set up an account with Mercy Corp, a team of 3,700 professionals helping turn crisis into opportunity for millions around the world. By trade, we are engineers, financial analysts, drivers, community organizers, project managers, public health experts, administrators, social entrepreneurs and logisticians. In spirit, we are activists, optimists, innovators and proud partners of the people we serve.

DONATE HERE

What does Mercy Corp do?
As international relief efforts continue in Haiti, a Mercy Corps earthquake response team is in Port-au-Prince responding to urgent needs.

Your donation will help families in Haiti recover from the most powerful quake to hit the country in more than 200 years. Mercy Corps relief workers with experience in disaster responses ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the Myanmar cyclone are converging on Haiti from Africa, Asia, and North America. They’re focusing first on the immediate needs — for water, food, temporary shelter supplies and much more — and expanding our work to three areas: clean water, post-trauma support for children and job creation.

The needs in Haiti are immense. Its capital lies in ruins, as many as 200,000 may be dead, and survivors are increasingly desperate for food, clean water and shelter. Please give what you can to help families recover.

Thank you!
-Brian Hardin II
www.ZombieMall.com

Four days after Haiti’s massive earthquake, efforts are under way to bury the dead as thousands of bodies crumpled in the streets of Port-au-Prince lay exposed to the sun or draped in sheets and cardboard.

Throughout the city, people covered their noses from the stench and some resorted to face masks. CNN correspondents in Haiti reported efforts to remove the bodies, including the creation of a mass grave. It’s still unclear how many people have been killed in Tuesday’s earthquake; the prime minister suggested there could be several hundreds of thousands.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, reporting Friday from a mass grave on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, described seeing hundreds of bodies mixed with garbage in open pits. Some bodies were bulldozed into the half-filled pits. Read more…

You guys all know I like to read.  A lot.  When I was in high-school my face was burried deep within a book each and every day.  For me they were magical portals to other worlds.  Something with much more meaning that going to a movie.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching movies too, but reading is my passion.  I would spend almost every Saturday at my local used book store looking at every spine as if it were a new type of candy…

A few weeks ago I found a site online called SeekBook.org .  It is run by Brad Kinne and is more than an entity online.  While you can purchase books from the site online, you can also physically walk into Seek Books if you are in the Boston area.

Now, here’s the thing that makes this book store different.  Brad has been a major fan of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy longer than even I have been.  That means that each book in his store is actually part of his personal collection!  They carry over 6,500 different titles!

Why am I going on about a book store?  Well, simply put, I feel there is a major place in the world for the physical tangible form of a book.  You will never see me walking around with one of those electronic e-readers that costs over $250.00!  You will almost always catch me with a book (I’m actually reading 4 right now) or a magazine, or working on my own writing.

In years past I’ve heard that the internet is going to do away with real world books.  I just don’t think that will happen.  Thanks to people like Brad Kinne and his Seek Books, we won’t ever have to worry about that either!

Be sure to check out his YouTube YellowBook video too:  Seek Books Video

I’ve been a huge fan of the Howard Stern show for quite some time.  Albeit not as long as he has been on air, but at least as far back as 1989.  When satellite radio was coming on the market I had always wanted to go to that medium, but it always seemed to be a bit out of my reach in terms of $$.

When I heard that Howard Stern was moving to satellite radio I decided it was time for me to make my move.  By this time Jackie Martling was no longer on the show and Artie Lange was the new in house comedian.
By now I’m sure you are asking what the hell this post has to do with zombies.  Well, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with zombies.  It is, however, a topic that I have to get off my chest.

Apparently this past weekend Artie Lange attempted to commit suicide by stabbing himself.  6 “hesitation wounds” and 3 “deep plunges”.  His mother found him in his home and called 911.  He was saved at the hospital.

The thing that bothers me about this (aside from his apparent suicide attempt) is this:

Those that listen to the show know Artie has battled drug abuse over the years.  Some times he would fall asleep while doing the show (which they always did things to him, made the show funny), or he would call in sick (hungover) to work.  Okay, I get that.  The man had drug problems.  In the past year he really has gotten it together and has found help.  But with this apparent suicide something about it does not make sense.

Perhaps it’s denial on my part.  I don’t know Artie aside from what I hear on the Howard Stern Show, and I’m certainly not a psychologist, but…  With someone of Arties background with drugs, it does not seem to make sense that he would stab himself to kill himself.  Would it not make more sense to overdose on booze and drugs?

Maybe I’m wanting it to be more of a murder attempt instead of a suicide attempt.

Why?

A murder attempt means that someone else was doing the action and that Artie did not go to that dark place of contemplating suicide.

Both scenarios are frighting and depressing for me to consider, but damnit.  For just over 9 years I’ve listened to the Howard Stern show with Artie Lange there and it’s given me hours of entertainment.

My heart goes out to you Artie, I hope you are able to get through this.

I miss you man.

Stayin Scary

-Brian Hardin II

Stephanie Booker, a friend of mine from Beck Media & Marketing shot me an email in regards to the new vampire movie, Daybreakers.  It was too damn cool, so I have to of course share it with all of you.

With Daybreakers premiering tomorrow, I thought this could be a fun item for you.  To get fans in the spirit, LA-based bpg Advertising developed this interactive Vampire Recruitment website, where anyone can personalize a video and spook their friends: http://www.vampirerecruiter.com/. (NOTE: This is a marketing initiative of the film’s Canadian distributor, Maple Pictures, and not  LIONSGATE.)

The site allows users to customize the recruitment video using personal photos, names, locations and even the type of car a friend drives.  bpg came up with the concept, produced all the video and designed and built the website.

Thanks for considering!

Stephanie Booker

Beck Media & Marketing

What would be your final words?  What would those who come after you have to say about your actions in life?

Sheldon S. Higdon has decided that while he is still among the living to cite what his final words will be.  He calls it The Obituary of Sheldon S. Higdon. 

Here’s the rundown directly from Higdon’s site:

“So here I am. I finally have an actual blog site where anyone can leave comments about my thoughts, ideas, suggestions, or rants. Just about no topic is off limits for me to write about here on this site I call, The Obituary.

I’ll write about funny experiences I’ve had or about writing. Talk about films or comics. And have a discourse about politics and social issues.  I may even bring up the dirty stuff that happens at Cons. Do I want to embarrass my friends? Uh, yeah! But it’s out of love and respect. Nothing too harmful. As long as it is professional and courteous and doesn’t create some sort of flame war, then I welcome all of you to join.

I call this The Obituary because these could very well be my last words.

But let’s hope not.

Stay Evil,

SSH”

I also understand that starting December 1st John Shirley will be the 1st Guest Blogger to post on Higdon’s Site.

Check it all out here:  The Obituary of Sheldon S. Higdon