Mock Man Press

The second draft of The Map of Zombies is at the printer, waiting for another proof! Between the first and second drafts I managed to add about 20 more zombie types, including such delights as “BioCops” (sequel to “Biozombie” — the word ‘delight’ is possibly an exaggeration), “Dead Nation,” “Yakuza: Dead Souls,” a few more movies, Eric Frank Russell’s short story “Impulse,” some hopefully not too questionable ebooks, and so on.

Working on this project of finding and categorizing all the world’s zombies, I realize that I could keep going for another two months, easy. There’s still TONS of zombies to list; in the case of books in particular, I’ve dug down through the 100 or 150 most popular zombie books on Amazon and Goodreads, but people keep writing zombie books every day. And many stories that might fall under my broad definition of ‘zombie’ — specifically, stories about people driven insane and homicidal by some weird phenomenon — aren’t even necessarily listed as ‘zombie stories.’ But even without that category, just like a true zombie apocalypse, THERE’S TOO MANY OF THEM.

Does this mean I admit defeat? Do I admit that I, with my mere human mind, cannot possibly encompass the Sum of All Zombie Knowledge? NO! But I am forced towards a frustrating acceptance of, if not my own know-it-allness, at least the inability of a 2’x3′ poster to display it all without turning into a phonebook. For the poster, all I can do is pick and choose the ~375 most important, the most vital, the most essential zombie works (as well as a lot of bad ones just because why not). But dammit, I’m doing my best! I’ll drag the HEART (ok, brain) out of zombie-ness and display it before the world. I will capture the Platonic Ideal of the concept of “ZOMBIE.”

Okay, back to other work while I wait for the printer proof!

NEXT UPDATE: Monday!