SDCC 2013: ‘Zombies in Pop Culture’ Panel

Who doesn’t like zombies? If pop culture references are any indication, zombies are still on the rise (The Walking Dead, Warm Bodies, and countless youtube videos to name a few). At San Diego Comic-Con, there was a panel dedicated to looking at ‘Zombies in Pop Culture’ headed by Max Brooks (author of World War Z and Zombie Survival Guide). Brooks was joined by a good handful of authors and they discussed the origin of the present day zombie and how zombies fit into pop culture.

How zombies are represented has changed much over the years, but the way we think of them today can be attributed to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). The film was originally titled Night of the Flesh Eaters, but was changed last minute, and due to the lack of that little copyright symbol, the film became public domain. Thus whomever wanted to make a film with zombies could because they were not trademarked.

Now with films like World War Z (the zombies are not fast in the book), there are super powered zombies! Brooks mentioned how he was asked if he would write a survival guide for fast zombies and he said, “Yeah, it would be a [thin] pamphlet that says kiss your ass goodbye!”. When zombies can run like normal humans, it seems a little off. They are dead thus their bodies should not move the way they would if they were alive. Something about zombies being so inhuman is what makes them disturbing. The panel mentioned how the more human the zombies are, the less scary they seem because you could possibly reason with them (or at least think you can). The way zombies will just kill anything makes your death less special and, in turn, makes you unimportant. That realization is what makes them terrifying.

However, regardless of how crazy the zombies are, zombie movies/shows/games should have at least taught us it is really other people that you have to worry about. The drama amongst people is one of the main draws of the zombie story line. Steven Schlozman, M.D. mentioned how, “The zombies aren’t the danger, it’s us”. Schlozman M.D. also agreed that we can learn from zombie pop cultured “what NOT to do”.

The panel as a whole believed zombies were here to stay, maybe they might drop back into the shadows a little but they will not disappear. Overall, it was a humorous discussion about societies fascination with these undead creatures and the pseudo-post apocalyptic world they inhabit.

I was able to get a photo with Max Brooks after panel!  I happened to be cosplaying Supergirl that day ^_^

BTW, that is me as a zombie up at the top 😉