Zombiewood [Book Review]

Zombiewood, a book distributed by Ulysses Press, is a very rare book that combines two very different passions of mine that somehow strangely go perfect together in a very Reese’s-Pieces-chocolate-and-peanut-butter-cup sort of way way. My love of zombies and my love of very bad celebrity gossip rags such like Entertainment Weekly.

The book itself is very stylistic close to an special issue of Entertainment Weekly post-Zombie Apocalypse; and I probably wouldn’t have stopped reading Entertainment Weekly if it was more like this.

Basically the book is a what-if the zombie apocalypse did happen and our celebrities were infected, but we still continued to stubbornly obsess over, fawn over and worship them like we did before the undead uprising; and I have to admit is pretty damn funny. While I see this as a perfect fit for horror genre fans I think because of the celebrity parody angle it definitely works as a great gag book for your celebrity obsessed coworker for Halloween as well.

I was really surprised at just how many celebrities are featured in this book, its almost veritable whose who of the undead Lady Gaga, check! Julia Roberts check! Megan Fox, check! That was kind of the first thing I did since the book is set up that it can be read in a very non-linear way; you can easily pick it up and put it down and pick it up again.

I read all the celebrities I was interested in and as I went back to the book and I read the ones I wasn’t so much and was pleasantly surprised out how they made me actually read something new about Lindsay Lohan and actually enjoyed it.

The book is lovingly illustrated by Rob Sacchetto, who very artfully turns each celebrity into a decomposing mess but still retaining the ability to keep each celebrity pretty recognizable. The prose is written by Jeremy Walsh who ads a bit of morose flair to each tidbit about said celebrities still facing the same challenges they did in their lives in the hereafter. Like poor dead Paris Hilton who still even dead, is still getting fired from films… this time for eating people.

This book while parody still says a lot about us as a culture, because of our fixations on celebrities and their day-to-day lives. I can almost believe a book like this would actually exist after Z-Day to tell you the truth. I found it while very funny and interesting meditation on celebrity and how we deal with them in our culture.

I see this as the perfect coffee table book for the horror film geek who enjoys some Hollywood Babylon from time to time, and a great conversation piece thanks to its great selection of celebrities. If you’re a fan of EC Comics or Zombie and Horror comics in general I think this is a great book to pick up even if you’re just sticking it on top of the pile of Entertainment Weeklys just for Halloween! So check out Zombiewood Weekly at your local bookstore or pick it up online here from Amazon!