Zombie Book Club
Zombie Love Child Turns 50 | Zombie Book Club Podcast Ep 50
Our Zombie Love Child is turning 50.... EPISODES!!! What an incredible milestone we celebrate together as we speak from the heart about our community of zombie book enthusiasts that has grown around us. We are so happy we have connected with you, our listeners, reminisce about the friends we have made along the way, and what the future may hold.
We also dive into the importance of diversity in zombie media, reflecting on our journey to include voices from different racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds. Hear our thoughts on the need for more nuanced representation in zombie apocalypse fiction and our personal growth in understanding anti-racism and disability justice.
Finally, we choose a winner for the Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Cluck Contest!!! We're FINALLY DOING IT!!!!
Get Jim X Dodge’s The Bite from: https://www.earthislandbooks.com/
Instagram @Jimxdodge
Zombie Book Club Podcast Soundtrack - add your tracks!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6upGARUoHmYwSlWpuzv4tO?si=9dcc88bbf6554fa6
Kate L. Mary - award winning zombie apocalypse author with multiple zombie apocalypse books
Instagram @zombieauthormom
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
ZBC Discord Server
https://discord.com/invite/8hCSb4eg
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Our Zombie Love Child is turning 50.... EPISODES!!! What an incredible milestone we celebrate together as we speak from the heart about our community of zombie book enthusiasts that has grown around us. We are so happy we have connected with you, our listeners, reminisce about the friends we have made along the way, and what the future may hold.
We also dive into the importance of diversity in zombie media, reflecting on our journey to include voices from different racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds. Hear our thoughts on the need for more nuanced representation in zombie apocalypse fiction and our personal growth in understanding anti-racism and disability justice.
Finally, we choose a winner for the Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Cluck Contest!!! We're FINALLY DOING IT!!!!
Get Jim X Dodge’s The Bite from: https://www.earthislandbooks.com/
Instagram @Jimxdodge
Zombie Book Club Podcast Soundtrack - add your tracks!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6upGARUoHmYwSlWpuzv4tO?si=9dcc88bbf6554fa6
Kate L. Mary - award winning zombie apocalypse author with multiple zombie apocalypse books
Instagram @zombieauthormom
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
ZBC Discord Server
https://discord.com/invite/8hCSb4eg
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a birthday party of a zombie baby and a whole horde of zombie lovers from around the world that are helping the zombie baby grow up big and strong to be a big, strong zombie baby. The zombie baby is this podcast. We're talking about Zombie Book Club. It's a metaphor or an allegory, or an alligator. Shut up, I'm a writer, I promise I'm Dan, and when I'm not nurturing our zombie baby the best way, I know how the tools I have available to me Adobe Premiere I'm writing a book about a zombie outbreak. So it's kind of like a younger sibling to our podcast. Zombie baby trying to claw its way out of the womb Whose womb?
Speaker 2:Somebody's womb. I'm Leah and I always said I didn't want children. I'm just saying I hope it's not my womb. I think it's your metaphorical womb is it? My womb, allegorical, metaphorical, alligator.
Speaker 1:Womb it's yours yeah, is this that arnold schwarzenegger movie where he has to have a baby?
Speaker 2:it is. What is that called Kindergarten Cop? It's not Kindergarten.
Speaker 1:Cop but close enough.
Speaker 2:What is that one called? He's in that one too. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Good thing we don't have a podcast about Arnold Schwarzenegger, because I don't know enough. Yeah, stay tuned for our upcoming podcast about Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and all the things that we know about them.
Speaker 2:That could be kind of fun. Oh, was it Twins?
Speaker 1:No, okay, could be kind of fun oh was it twins?
Speaker 2:no, okay, I don't really don't know what it is. Uh, today is a terminator two. No, um, today's a casual dead podcast, dan oh, what does that mean? Uh, it means that we're doing whatever the hell we want, but because it's our 50th episode and we, our little zom baby is now like a year and a half old, I think, maybe a year and a quarter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's 18 months I definitely haven't been doing the like pictures of the bait zom baby with beside, like how many months it is and how many pounds it is we also haven't um put the zom baby's feet in like plaster so that we can have like a little circle plaster thing of its feet imprints um. It would be horrific what does a zombie baby's feet look like?
Speaker 1:awful applause not good, not good.
Speaker 2:I think. If it's a zombie baby, you'd probably have to like a plaster of its mouth yeah, yeah I think so yeah let's not question it.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, uh, but regardless, this all makes sense this does everything about this intro.
Speaker 2:We are celebrating our milestone of 50 episodes.
Speaker 1:I never thought that we would make it to 50. Really, I mean, I hoped but, like you know, I've had. I've had a few podcasts before um, nothing good, uh, and I always got to like episode 24 and then something would just happen and it wouldn't happen ever again that's kind of tragic, especially because we had a very brief stint, when we were getting back together, of a podcast it's true, that is now hidden in the ether it is I've.
Speaker 1:I have a google drive that I've shared with you and they're all in there I did see that, yeah yeah we.
Speaker 2:It's scandalous though, folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we recorded one episode and that went up and that one didn't have any things in it that we would want to hide from our parents. But then the second one was it was really unhinged.
Speaker 2:Unhinged. It was X-rated.
Speaker 1:It was very spicy and I don't know how to present that to a group of people that are like I like watching you because you play gta and roblox. Yeah, I'm like. Most of my, most of my viewers are 12 years old.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we should we'd had an eight-year break in our um intimacy, so there was a lot of tension when we were recording this and it spilled over inappropriately. So we're not doing that in this book club either, although it does occasionally go there, um, but today we are celebrating the evil magic chicken zombie t-shirt giveaway. Yeah, that's happening today.
Speaker 1:I'm drawing did I win I don't know who won? Because I I'm really, I really want that t-shirt. You can just buy one. Everyone can just buy one. That's right. Everyone can just buy one. Everyone can just buy one.
Speaker 2:That's right, everyone can just buy one. I was hoping to have more diversity of T-shirts up. I know a few folks who said they would really like one with our logo on it, but Dan is the maker of T-shirts and he's busy y'all. Sorry, he's in a truck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sucks being in trucks. That is a rhyme. I rhymed it All the time, I knew it when it was coming out and I did nothing to stop it. Funny thing about driving trucks. I made a post this week yesterday actually about something that happened at work. The short version is I was leaving the shop and I saw my boss, the owner of the company, the person who owns all the equipment, and he's usually a pretty straight edge buy the books kind of guy, because he owns millions of dollars worth of equipment and trucks and has all these contracts going on. He has to present himself in a professional manner. He he let the intrusive thoughts take over and he swerved into my lane and played chicken with me. And I didn't swerve away from him, in fact I sped up, oh my god, was it no like could you tell like?
Speaker 2:would he be able to see that you're going faster?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I told him that I sped up. It's a dump truck, so you don't really see.
Speaker 2:It's a gradual increase.
Speaker 1:It's not like throwing me into the back of the seat or anything.
Speaker 2:I'm not pulling any jeans. You got one mile an hour faster than you were driving. And who won the chicken?
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing. He swerved back in his lane and later he called me and he was like that was messed up. You didn't even swerve. And then I told him like I sped up, I didn't know if this was an insurance thing, so I didn't want to mess that up for you, something that I didn't have enough room to talk about on threads, because they only give you 500 characters. His response to that was a long pause and then he said if we're doing an insurance thing, I'll tell you ahead of time, but fortunately it hasn't come to that yet.
Speaker 2:I'm glad to hear that, and if you're here because you saw dan's viral post, hi, um, this has nothing to do with trucks playing chicken, but it does have to do with zombies and evil magic chicken zombies. Yeah, times come up on this podcast yeah, see the.
Speaker 1:Uh. What which episode was that? Con plan 88? In con plan 88, 88, episode um I, I mapped out a plan for how to battle evil magic chicken zombies, and now people call us and make chicken noises.
Speaker 2:Specifically zombie evil magic chicken, zombie noises.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we have a little bit of a giveaway going on. So we're going to draw the winner today, for everybody whose name I know, and we're also going to give you a preview of what's coming up for the next 50 episodes. A little bit, just a little bit, of a taste. The next 50?.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have every single one planned. That's a lie. I'm like I don't even know what we're doing after this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I I know like five episodes in advance right now, and then there's like a few like interviews that we have scheduled, I know those I know that we're what we're doing on episode 55 yeah, the remaining. Yeah, we're talking about the remaining by dj mole.
Speaker 1:It's our, it's our book club, we books.
Speaker 2:This is a very messy intro today.
Speaker 1:I love it, but we're just going to roll with it.
Speaker 2:Dan, how many Zeds would you rate our podcast?
Speaker 1:I would give our podcast 10 Zed words out of five. Wow yeah. When we started this, I was using the five system out of five. Then I switched out of 10. So I feel like it's appropriate to give it 10 out of five why is it?
Speaker 2:um, let's use the format we do for reviewing books and movies. So what were the things, what are the things you love about zombie book club that give it a 10 out of five?
Speaker 1:oh, I love it because you're in it and I'm a big fan of you that's nice. Yeah, there's another person. That's a part of it, um, and you know whatever there's another person yeah, just some straight white male. Oh you, you know who needs his opinions I do.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I don't, but most of the time I want to hear a lot of the times you don't um the other things you know runners up is whenever um nero and ziggy would bark during the episode.
Speaker 2:Um, because I like hearing them they are really cute, and I don't remember what episode that was where they interrupted us every two minutes, but I know that you made, like, um, what are they called? A little montage, a montage of their barks interrupting us in that episode. Um, yeah, well, I did want to talk about the top five reasons we love zombie book club, and then I would love to hear other people oh, what do you love? But why are you? Why are you?
Speaker 2:listening why, yeah, like dan and I started this because I thought it'd be fun. You're writing a zombie book. Um, we enjoy zombie things together. I, I thought that like I think I thought like in a very abstract way, I'm like, oh, there'll be like a community that will build. I don't think I understood or tap into. I should say I think that community existed in many ways already.
Speaker 1:I thought some people would find it and they'd be like oh, I haven't thought about reading a book, you've talked me into it I didn't think that there were people out there like yes, I've read these books and no one is talking about these books. And we need to talk about these books.
Speaker 2:We're not even close to like the most voracious eaters of books books. Ali, but also I forgot the person's name, but there's a Facebook group called Written Apocalypse and somebody had written down every single book that they had read and it was pages and pages and pages all zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how many I've read.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'd have to make a list. I'd have to make a list, yeah, but uh, I think uh, top five reasons we love zombie book club. For me, number one is all of you listening. I don't know how you found us. We don't do any real meaningful promotion, except for when I feel like making a real sometimes, yeah, except for when I talk about smashing my dump truck into my boss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seems to guess maybe give us some new listeners. Um, you know, this was like. I mean, when you make a podcast or you, you know, make a youtube video or you go on the social media, you know that somebody is going to see it or hear about it in some capacity. But it's kind of. The unintended thing that we discovered was just that people would find us and like what we were doing which I find surprising, because I don't think of myself as the most likable.
Speaker 2:I think I love us, but I love us, and I love like I love you. I think you're wonderful. I don't think that you and I out there in the world are like winning any popularity contests.
Speaker 1:Maybe we just found the other weirdos of the world, and weirdos unite I zombies I tell people in the grocery store to go fuck themselves when they tell me to get dip. Have you told that story on the podcast? I don't know let me know if I've told that story before. Maybe we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2:If you haven't, we absolutely need to. But I'm not saying, maybe you all are the popular kids listening to this, in which case, wow yeah, um.
Speaker 2:The popular kids are reading zombie novels yeah, I mean, I think it depends on how you define popular, yeah, but my point is is like I knew we'd find some people. I don't think I fully understood, because you don't know who you find until you find them, or they find you and then they start talking to you and you're like, wow, this is like a really like really amazing people who also just happen to love zombie stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who knew, yeah, a whole bunch of people who have the same traumas as the rest of the special interests yeah, uh, and what was the venn diagram you were saying of people who listen?
Speaker 2:it's like zombie lovers, writers. And there's a third one oh, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know oh well, I don't remember this.
Speaker 1:You definitely depressed the button for that oh yeah, hold on the button's here somewhere perfect that's.
Speaker 2:I guess it's just starting not to get too sappy, um, but like, when people reach out to us and then we respond and that you know you seem so happy to hear from us, I'm kind of like what is happening right now, like people, yeah, appreciate what we're doing and that's really nice, thank you. Thank you for, like, um, being humans that make me think that an apocalypse might actually be a bad thing, because I want you all to be okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but also if there was an apocalypse, we could come together and all like I don't know eat nachos.
Speaker 2:We do need to have a backup supply of many years of nachos in our bunker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we need to learn how to make nachos.
Speaker 2:We could all make nachos, eat nachos and watch George Romero movies. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We need to learn how to go from growing corn to making nachos, because this is important.
Speaker 2:Well, we have Simon for that. Simon literally made oat milk for us this week. Simon is Dan's brother. He moved in with us if you're new to the podcast recently and he made oat milk this week and then from the extra oats he made oat crackers and then dried some bananas for banana chips.
Speaker 1:So I think we've got somebody who can figure out the nachos yeah, moving on to the second reason, we love the zombie book club, uh, finding new authors and amazing stories. You know, I we were found by authors who I'd never heard of before because, like, when you go looking for zombie books or zombie graphic novels or comics, you know like it's, it's permeated with, like the the top bestsellers. You know, you see max brooks, you see george romero, you see robert kirkman, the walking dead. Um, you don't necessarily uh see people at the top of the of of the list, uh, like joshua grant or brandon staraki, like, who made comics that we've never heard of and if it weren't for this, we wouldn't know that they existed. Um, joshua grant, he made another zombie apocalypse. When he talked to him episode, I want to say nine, no eight should we have our list up so we can refer to?
Speaker 1:episodes.
Speaker 2:We're not here to be factually correct but yeah, he found us and then we read it and we're like this is amazing and he's making a movie out of the first chapter of that book yeah and uh.
Speaker 1:Brandon staraki made avalon. We talked to him on episode. I want to say 17 wow, your memory is incredible that's the first time I've heard that in a long time. Uh, he's gonna be on an episode in september with us, which is really exciting we should also check in with joshua, because I know that he's he's had a lot of stuff going on yeah, we absolutely need to see how josh is doing and then I think that we found sylvester barzy on on instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, he wrote planet dead and uh, we interviewed him. Was it episode 35?
Speaker 2:something like that. I know it was march 10th. That I know for sure, because it was two days after my birthday, episode 35 um, but yeah, sylvester writes so much more than just Planet Dead.
Speaker 2:I want to give a shout out briefly yeah, a prolific writer, and we have another book that I just got from him, called Youngblood, that I'm looking forward to reading and hopefully having it back to talk about, because apparently it's a zombie vampire mashup, which I love zombies. Well, I love zombies, or well, I love zombies. Obviously, that was my noun retrieval issue coming up. I meant to say I love vampires, but instead I said zombies.
Speaker 1:Well, I love them both. I also love zombies, leah, clearly. And then you know, we, through Brandon Staraki, we were able to meet Lori Calcaterra. Like that, like these, these threads across the zombie verse came together. And then he's like you should talk to Lori Calcaterra, she is a trip.
Speaker 2:And she is. And she won our first annual zombie game show yeah, episode 21. She's the queen of zombie.
Speaker 1:And I'm really glad that we did because she's hilarious and also Path of the Pale Rider is incredible.
Speaker 2:It really is. We just actually backed their kickstarter or kickstarter and speaking of kickstarters, we also just backed mr guy, zombie hunter lindsey and jl of dineshi press, which we have publicly declared our standing for um on instagram, so they know, they know we stay you if you're listening. And then folks like Oliver Gray. We have not interviewed Ollie Eats Brains yet, but they have a series called Maze that we started to read and then kind of got off track because life got chaotic and now we need to get back on it because we want to have them on the show. There's some other people that I don't want to jinx it that we have some interviews potentially lined up for. That I'm really excited about. But I think the big thing is these are all people that I would never have met if it wasn't for this, and they're incredible creators.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also want to give a shout out to zompocalypse too, because he's been with us for quite a while. I kind of feel like he's one of the one of the first people that like would message us after an episode, would drop and and tell us his thoughts about the things that we were talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we love you. Zompocalypse, yeah, and you also left us such a nice note when we were having a hard time checking in. Yeah, so sweet. He's a very heartfelt human being.
Speaker 1:He is, who knew that the zombie apocalypse lovers would be such genuinely good and nice people?
Speaker 2:That is interesting. Maybe that's the Venn diagram. The last circle is like genuinely decent humans. Yeah, you know who knew. Yeah, I thought we were all-.
Speaker 1:I love blood guts and gore and being nice to people.
Speaker 2:It's fascinating, isn't it? But the other thing I just want to say thank you to all the creators that are listening and whatever way you create whether it's writing or art or making podcasts Thanks. I think what's been really cool for me as a human being is I have been known for being just a little bit too serious about life and really being focused on like my work and doing work things and equating, like creating things, like if I can't make money at it, then I'm not successful, and I realized that that's just ridiculous and people are creating to create and it's amazing and I've been doing a lot more of that because of all of you. So thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, and you know, what's kind of interesting is that when we started, I don't think that we really intended to interview authors. We were just going to talk about the books that I read. Yeah, I wasn't even going to read them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't even gonna read them.
Speaker 1:yeah, to be completely gonna read any because, uh, because it was. It's kind of more like this is something that I've been doing over the years is just like I consume all of the zombie content because, like my brain needs it, and it's like let's talk about that because I'm writing a book.
Speaker 2:So, like you know, it makes sense to want to talk about other books yeah, and I thought it would be fun and like an outlet for you and something for us to do. That was fun together. But then I I mean I've always liked zombie movies and TV shows. I'd never read as well. That's a lie. I read World War Zed Still calling it that and I read Zombie.
Speaker 1:Survival.
Speaker 2:Guide, but that was, I am embarrassed to say, decades ago.
Speaker 1:You mean the Zed Omby survival guide.
Speaker 2:That doesn't count. As you say, the letter Zed, but it's pronounced Z. Z right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a difference, makes sense.
Speaker 2:I didn't invent the English language, I just speak it Anyhow. I had read some, but nothing since then, and now I'm obsessed. So thank you, because before this I was reading a lot of nonfiction about the other apocalypse that is, climate change, and now I'm reading about fictional ones. So it's great escape, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know climate change. I don't think that we have to read about it anymore. It's just happening around us. Yeah, so now we have to escape and read about different apocalypse. It's true.
Speaker 2:So number three I really like looking deeply into dan's eyes across our podcast table. Yeah, we make a lot of um, almost inappropriate eye contact if someone else is in the room but no one is. Sometimes when we're doing interviews, I have to be like, right, I need to look at the screen and not dan's beautiful blue eyes. I have blue eyes, yeah now people?
Speaker 1:Now people know I'm doxxed.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are pictures of you on the internet. What?
Speaker 1:I didn't sign off on this Number four, Aaliyah. This is important to me. We have an excuse to read zombie books and watch zombie movies.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have never watched so much in my life, nor chosen to continue watching something that started to go bad like zombie verse um if it was not for this podcast. See the zombie verse or zombie worse episode for our feelings on that one yeah, it was really funny and then horrible yeah, it was such a disappointment.
Speaker 1:It was like I was. I was enjoying it, I'm like this is going really well. And then episode four came and I'm like oh boy, yeah, it's also for me like I was. I was enjoying it and I'm like this is going really well.
Speaker 2:And then episode four came and I'm like oh boy yeah, it's also for me like I like reading zombie movies, reading zombie movies my nouns today. I like watching zombie movies and tv and reading zombie books because there is always something you can take that's like real world applicable, and my inner anthropologist gets to come out and like apply anthropological concepts and sociological concepts to zombie lit, because I'm a dork and it makes me happy, so that's kind of a nice thing. I think that's how I make it work for me, because you've already said many times that zombie books and movies are not ever about the zombie, just the zombie. If they're actually really good, yeah, there has to be a meaningful story beyond that. So that's what I'm always looking for. Yeah, also, so that's what I'm always looking for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also, that's another part of the Venn diagram is dorks?
Speaker 2:Yes, which you know, speaking of coolness dorks, have risen in coolness factor in the last couple of decades.
Speaker 1:It's a good thing too.
Speaker 2:Then we were kids. Number five this one is a pleasant surprise, and it may be because we are intentionally seeking it out. I don't know if it would feel this way if we were, just like uh, not being intentional on what we're reading and who we're talking to, but there's actually more diversity in the zombie genre, um, and actual 3d female characters uh, than I ever expected turns out. If you look for it, it exists, and there are awesome authors everywhere that are actually making really cool zombie uh books about people from all kinds of different walks of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I found an interesting thing about zombie movies, but also zombie books and stuff, is that by looking for the diversity, I found a lot less heard of zombie fiction and it's been really interesting because these, like lesser known stories, tend to be very unique yeah as opposed to what is the mainstream of uh zombie horror yeah, like I'm really looking forward to reading alice b sullivan's work because it has um lesbian love stories and the dog doesn't die and that's really important to me note to self don't kill the dog seriously, please don't, or the horse lori don't kill the horse or well, the horse is undead, right, because death is broken, and path of the pale rider, yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:so I think the point is that there is way more amazing writers out there than I imagined, and all it took was like two seconds of Googling to find them. It really is actually not that hard.
Speaker 1:You know what, not to interrupt you, but I am.
Speaker 2:You are absolutely interrupting me, man. You're mansplaining.
Speaker 1:I do recall a time where you were telling me that we need to find more diversity in the books that we're reading.
Speaker 2:And by that I mean more racial diversity and gender diversity. Those are the two things I started thinking about Not just stories from straight white men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because it was glaringly obvious and if we didn't think about it it was going to just be all only straight white men, because of what I had seen over my many years of reading these books is like I'm like it's hard to find anything that's not just a straight white, male, conservative led story Like that's kind of what. What populates the genre.
Speaker 2:I actually found a whole list of authors.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Of black authors, other folks of color, I found I found queer authors because of pride month and folks sharing about them. Like it took a five second google search to prove you wrong. Yeah, and I think that that's a really interesting point. It just shows you whose voices get elevated most of the time, and it's not about quality of writing and it's not about quality of marketing. It's just about, um, I think there's a default setting and that default setting is inherently exclusive and it needs to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm glad that I've experienced the change because it's opened me up to so many new and interesting stories that I wouldn't have ever heard if I just read another book where it starts with the straight white dad who's home early from work while his family's at school. He turns on Fox News and there's zombies outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we started pretty light to begin with. I remember when we first started we're like, what books are we going to read? You started listening. I'm like, ok, are any of those female writers, are any of them people of color? And you were like no. And I was like OK, no-transcript was the beginning. And then I was like there's got to be other authors that are, um, not necessarily traditionally published, that are out there that we're just not hearing about because they're not coming up in these like top five lists. And then we started getting more indie authors reaching out to us, which is really really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been a journey and we still have a long way to go, but I think what's been interesting is because we have been doing some media representation tests. In the review episodes that we do, which were 26 and 50 episodes were reviews of either books or movies or tv shows, I've been able to do like a little bit of analysis of how we've done, or rather how the zombie field of literature and movies, media looks when it comes to representation. Are you ready to hear?
Speaker 2:it how are we doing okay, first of all, I want to say that this test, uh, or this little mini study, is heavily biased because we by probably episode 10, started shifting our choices to be more inclusive. If we had not done that, I don't know that it would be this good.
Speaker 1:It happens when you start thinking about it?
Speaker 2:Yes, Because there's plenty of excellent authors and books out there. Having said that, this is a heavily biased set of 26 sample sizes. A sample size of 26, first of all, very small and secondly, biased by our own choices. 22 out of those 26 books or movies that we reviewed passed the race test, which is about representation of someone other than white in the film in a way that they are not just like a plot device.
Speaker 1:Basically, it's actually kind of impressive. I didn't think that we did that well in our choices. I kind of feel like when I think of a zombie movie or book, typically it's very white-centric.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to remember that these tests are basement floors of media representation for diversity. They are not. I'm not saying that there were main characters of color in 22 of 26. I'm saying that there was a character of color who did something or said something a couple of times that had some level of tofuiness, of tofuiness, tofuiness meatiness, that it was not just like here's. You know, this person is here only to fulfill the specific role to move the plot forward because of their race. So this is like bare minimum um and again, I don't think it's just our choices, like I didn't choose fallout because I thought that it was going to be intentionally um, really focused on diversity representation, but actually it passes all of these tests yeah, I knew nothing about fallout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I didn't. It was a complete surprise to me that we had uh maximus's character.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that there was going to be anything to do with the brotherhood of steel or that there would be any other characters other than lucy yeah, um 21 of 26 things that we reviewed passed the bechdel test, which is for representation of women talking to another woman about something other than a man. Yeah, we did it, 21 of 26. Yeah, again, basement floor not saying like I think sean of the dead passes this women talked to each other yeah, I'm not saying it's a feminist point of view or like um.
Speaker 2:In contrast, sylvester barzee's planet dead has a main black female lead, um, and other main black characters, and it blows the bechdel test out of the water in fact, very few male characters, yeah, who aren't trying to kill them yes, loved it, loved it.
Speaker 2:So there's a huge diversity here of like what this even means to pass any of these tests. Here's where it gets a little bit more rocky. So we started with the race test and the Bechdel test and that's really where I started thinking about this. I'm like, okay, we need to have racial diversity and gender diversity in who we're reading and what we're watching. But then later on I was like oh, you know what about my queer community, the LGBTQIA plus community and I'm sorry if I'm missing a letter. I know it's an evolving thing. I say the queer community because I identify as queer, but some people are uncomfortable with that word. So if you have feedback for me on that, just randomly, please feel free to share. I'm still figuring that out. Regardless, eight of the 26 passed the veto russo test for representation of the queer community not as good yeah
Speaker 2:not as good starting to starting to fall off yeah, um, and a lot of them don't have love stories, so I think that it's um. I wonder if there needs to be some caveat there. But at the same time, everybody's kind of assumed straight if it's not in some way present. Like you don't have to have a love story to have someone's identity, be a little more clear and just have that representation. Like Mr Guy Zombie Hunter with the trans character. It was just woven into the narrative. No big deal. There they are. It's not like there didn't need to be any more about it for that person to be present in the comic series, so that's possible. And then for the FRIES test, which is representation of people with disabilities, nine out of 26 passed, so just slightly more than the LGBTQIA community representation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'd like to say that I'm surprised by these numbers, but I'm really not.
Speaker 2:Why aren't you surprised?
Speaker 1:Because that's just how our society is. It tries to ignore people with disabilities, especially when the story is about survival. Usually, survival of the fittest is usually the story of the zombie apocalypse. Um, I mean, zombie land was based around the entire premise of here's a bunch of rules and if you can't do these things, you'll never survive. Like running.
Speaker 1:We haven't reviewed zombie land yet yeah, you know it's, uh, it's, it's, it's gonna get us a lot of hate mail, I feel like, because everybody loves it and we've recently rewatched it, before this podcast started and you know spoiler alert. We rewatched it and we're like, the writing's not very good. This is a very like cookie cutter zombie story.
Speaker 2:It has some funnies in it, but the jokes aren't really like that great I think this is why it's important, like sometimes we do uh zed ratings for like the moment we saw it the first time and like how it's aged. Yeah, and sometimes these things are very different, like now there's a whole new set of standards that zombie land does not meet for me yeah, you know, what I'm curious about is I I have yet to see it is the Zombieland 2.
Speaker 1:A lot of people's hot take on it was that it's just. You know, it's kind of just the same jokes from Zombieland 1. I'm like maybe they're better jokes, maybe it's the same jokes, but they wrote them better, maybe it's a better movie, who knows? We'd like to find out. We can watch them and review them.
Speaker 2:I'm going to specifically put a call out there. If you know of any indigenous authors who have written zombie apocalypse fiction, uh, please let me know. That's one I have not been able to find and I'm sure it exists. It's got to um, I'm sure somebody out there is doing that. And also, I've been looking for any main trans characters in any zombie apocalypse fiction. I've seen some really great queer characters, but no main trans characters yet. So those are the things I'm like they've got to exist. And then also, as somebody who's had to use a wheelchair quite a bit in the last year for anything that involves a lot of walking I'll have Dan push me around a wheelchair I would really love to see more physical disabilities centered stories, because I think that that's interesting. What does it look like to survive an apocalypse in a wheelchair? It's a different reality and I'm curious about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a lot to explore there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we've seen a few, but we could do more.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you're writing a zombie apocalypse novel and you're like what could I put in my book that nobody's seen before? Uh, it's a wheelchair.
Speaker 2:Put a wheelchair in your book, people will be like whoa, that's crazy, but make sure, like anytime you're going to be doing something that is um, writing from a point of view that's not your own, do your research and treat them in the same way that you treat any other character. Make them full, full-blooded, complex characters. I think our interview sylvester. He gives really good advice on that, and I think we've talked about a few other people about what you need to do. Brandon staraki talked about having, like um, a sensitivity reader. So, yeah, do it, but make sure you do it well. And I just want to give a shout out to the three that passed all four tests. I just need to find it World War Z Really Passes all four.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what, wow? The book or the movie, the book. Oh, let's be clear. Not the movie.
Speaker 2:World War Z the book. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Passes all four. Yeah, the ones who live passes all four. Mr Guy, zombie Hunter passes all four and last but not least, fallout passes all four. Wow, yeah. And again I want to say those are all really excellent ones and these are just our assessments. Like if you've listened to any of our episodes and you're like, wait, no, I think this one actually does pass all four. Let us know, because this is just our impression and this is not a thesis. I'm not going to school for this. I'm sure I've missed details.
Speaker 1:Also, if you think that we should be implementing any other tests, let us know what those tests are.
Speaker 2:Or just like how do you want us to talk about representation? Because, again, I think this was like an entry point for us these tests and by no means it's the door that we're opening. It's not the whole room or the whole world that we need to be learning more about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm not an anthropologist.
Speaker 2:One of us in this room is yes, but I'm not writing a dissertation, to be clear, or a book.
Speaker 1:But I'm just doing the best that I can with what I've got, and that is the love of Leah, who teaches me so many things about the world that I don't know if my heart would have been open to on my own, or maybe I would have just been too blind to change, but I'm really glad that I have you in my life.
Speaker 2:Thanks, dan, and this podcast. They say knowing someone is the biggest gateway to opening your mind. Um, and that has just to be clear, like thanks for the thank you, but, um, there are probably people listening to this podcast that have helped me grow as a human being and see things differently, also because of who you are. So, and certainly lots of people that are not listening to this podcast that I love or maybe haven't talked to in 10 years.
Speaker 2:Uh but yeah, I, I didn't get here overnight and I still have a long way to go yeah, um recovering white person.
Speaker 1:How do we recover from what our whiteness?
Speaker 2:um, that's a whole other episode is there a rehab program.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think, like doing anti-racism work is a good start. All right, I'm doing a course right now called racial and disability justice, which is like the intersection of racial justice and disability justice, like stuff like that. Yeah, there's programs, there's things and like, more importantly, there's the practicing, there's the practice. Like if we had done this podcast just briefly, if we had done this podcast and I had never brought up the fact that it was only white male authors and white male lead characters, then all of the fucking shit that I've learned my whole life would be meaningless. Right, like I need to be implementing it everywhere, this kind of awareness, and also be open to the fact that I'm growing and I, for all I know, offended somebody on this episode, in which case let me know, because that doesn't know if we offended unless you think we're pretentious, in which case let us know if we're pretentious speaking to the youtube person who called us that but yeah, I, you know, we're learning.
Speaker 2:Uh. Just last episode we talked about, we fucked up with uh ai art, yeah that was.
Speaker 1:That was fun. Let's let's do a clip show of that one time.
Speaker 2:Of all the times we fucked up. Sometimes, frankly, something will happen and I'll be like let's not keep that because we're learning growing people here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to listen to all our fuck ups. I edit myself a lot. Oh damn All the times when I say something really stupid and I'm like I shouldn't be saying that Well, you were raised to see yourself as the center of the universe.
Speaker 2:So I think you know you're learning that you are actually. No, you are a speck of sand. What? That's not very nice. Everybody's a speck of sand and we're all beautiful.
Speaker 1:Wow, did you hear what she called you guys? She basically called you dirt.
Speaker 2:None of us are more important than anybody else, but we're also not less important than anybody else. Hi everybody, this is the commercial. That is not the commercial that I promised that dan got mad at me for promising because he never sleeps and only works and then has to edit the podcast and doesn't have time to finish the commercial he was going to do, which is about evil magic chicken zombies, which is coming. When is it coming? I don't know. Like any virus, it could strike at any moment. So wait for that.
Speaker 2:In the meantime, you should go to play spotify and check out zombie book club podcast soundtrack. It's been a labor of love that I've been doing. It's got songs on it like zombie by philip cootie, kern craft 400 by zombie nation close your eyes by kim petras. Stadium love by metric gasoline by I prevail Love by Metric Gasoline by I Prevail. Zombie by North Country Band, the Zombie Song by Stephanie Mabey, bang Pow Boom by Insane Clown Posse and Zombie vs Shark from Send More Paramedics. It's a banger.
Speaker 2:It's very long because I'm long-winded, just like this randomly made up and improv commercial. It is exactly two hours and 26 minutes and you can add more. Add your favorite zombie songs. I don't know what they are, but my only request is that you keep the exit music from Radiohead as the very last song. That's all I'm asking. It's really important to me that that stays as the last song. Also, you could buy our t-shirts in the show notes and I'm really sorry that I made a promise that I could not actually fulfill because I'm not the one who's working on this commercial. But there is a movie. It is a trailer, it is about evil, magic chicken, zombies and it is coming. Thank you for the applause, everybody. All right back to the unusual programming.
Speaker 1:Let's move on, because we have some groans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from all of my lovely specks of sand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we got some groans from the horde leah, arg, we should have like a sound effect for that. Uh, we should just pick a zombie chicken. Ah, man, if I had the time for sound effects. Um, first groan. I like this one a lot. Uh, this is. This was exciting to see k l mary she's uh at zombie author mom on instagram. I've. I've read, uh, kate kate's books, a couple of them from the broken world series, which I think were her first books, but she's written, I want to say, like 60 books, prolific, yeah, like, also like. So that's okay, how can you?
Speaker 2:let us know, let dan know specifically, yeah what is?
Speaker 1:what is your average words per minute that you write at um asking for a friend? But yeah, she, uh, she um messaged us on on instagram. She said that she got an email, uh from somebody today letting her know that we mentioned her on the podcast and she said that made my day. I admittedly only listened to one podcast, but now I'm going to check yours out, because I do love some zombies and also I listen to audio books while I mow. I love multitasking. I think I mentioned that I was listening to Kate L Mary's book while lawn mowing.
Speaker 2:And that whenever you lawn mow, you think of Kate L Mary's book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I read it last year and her first book the way that it started it was like really incredible the way that it started. So you know, I don't know what her more recent writing is like, but I really liked the first one and, uh, it really, it's it. It really set the pace right at the very beginning. And whenever I'm out there mowing and I smell that mowed grass like there's certain corners on on on my lawn that when I turn around it I remember scenes from that book and uh, yeah, thanks for writing that book. Yeah, I should read the rest of them also all 60 of them.
Speaker 2:Another part of our vendor diagram is people who mow lawns while listening to podcasts and audiobooks, because I think this is like the fourth person to comment about that seems to be a very common practice. Um, hey, kate, love that I don't mow the lawn, so I don't have this in common with all of you. It's dan's job. Yeah, I mean, if you want to not along gendered lines, ps, it's because I can't walk, uh, or I can walk, I just can't walk for that long.
Speaker 1:We have a riding mower but, um, it's our. Our lawn is like so steep and hilly and weird. It's scary, like I'm afraid that, like you know, that somebody could just tip over on the lawnmower and kill themselves, and I prefer that to be me Also.
Speaker 2:you're the better driver because you are a truck driver for a living. I can't back out of our driveway. So for context of skill level. But here's the really cool thing is I was like who emailed Kate? Like how did this happen? That's so cool.
Speaker 1:Which one of you was it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then Show yourself, joe, also a zombie author, whose book's going to be out soon. Joe, let us know when it's coming out so we can talk about it on the show. Was the mystery fairy who made the connection. They emailed Kate, I guess.
Speaker 1:Joe did.
Speaker 2:Yes, Joe did Dan's learning with his life.
Speaker 1:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Joe said thank you for the shout out. You guys are the best. I reached out to Kate L Mary to let her know she was mentioned as well. She's one of my favorite zombie authors and she gave me some great feedback on my first chapters. I just love this community. Again, the number one reason why I love this podcast is the community involved, and I know that, joe, you also mentioned in a message to us about how someone had seen your reel, about why you're publishing as an indie author, and reached out to you for advice too from our page. So, like it's incredible, this group of people and I just, even though I've never met you, I kind of love you and I did fall in love with Dan over the internet, so I think we're all internet besties. Yeah, I did fall in love with Dan over the internet.
Speaker 1:So I think we're all internet besties. Yeah, that's how it works now. Yeah, exactly, you know real quick. I sometimes found myself being a little bit jealous of the people who just liked fantasy. You know, like they have so much and they have such a huge community where it's like, well, I like Tolkien and I like the Wheel of Time or something. Well, I like Tolkien and I like the Wheel of Time or something, and it's just like that mainstream appeal of like you have a thing, it has a name and you can see all the people who are involved in it, and I'm like why isn't there something like that for the zombie apocalypse community?
Speaker 1:Because I feel like there's the walking dead and then it's like where the fuck is everyone else? And I think that I think now we're finding it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might not be as like, obvious in your face as the fantasy genre community but like, for example, the written apocalypse is a Facebook group. I'm never on Facebook, I don't even know how I randomly saw that post one day. I think I joined it because I saw it somehow. I don't even know how I found it. Facebook new and the written apocalypse has like 5,000 people in it, yeah, and they're mostly talking. They're not talking to just zombies, but apocalypse. I think the wider apocalypse interest. I feel like it's a millennial thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:That could be a whole other episode too. Yeah, we'd need to talk millennials on the apocalypse.
Speaker 1:You know that quick. I don't want to get off subject too much, but I've, you know, I've. There's a lot of like horror podcasts and things like that. There's a lot of people that are into horror movies and I've always felt like the people that love watching somebody getting chopped in half of the chainsaw by a guy wearing somebody else's face as a mask isn't necessarily the same people who are going to love the zombie apocalypse and vice versa. And I think that apocalypse community is that place where there is some cross-pollination happening, where it's like there's all kinds of apocalypses and some, some people like a zombie apocalypse, some people like I don't know a vampire apocalypse or a meteor hitting, hitting earth or something. Don't look up.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and like and those and like. Those are the people who. They're all looking for the same kind of thing.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're looking for the, the deeper, deeper uh stories about what it is to be human or they just want to see gore, which is also acceptable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not a big lover of gore, but I know for some people it's part of why they're there. Um, another shout out from the horde. Hard change of topic uh, laurie calcaterra from path of the pale rider responded to our episode 48 hoas and the apocalypse homeowners associations. For those of you don't know, yeah, some people don't know what that is. They said uh, or lori said the hoa would probably be in denial about the apocalypse and send out letters to cut your grass. The apocalypse isn't an excuse to let home values drop they would.
Speaker 1:They would be out there being like um, you know what your paint is starting to peel and that is against the bylaws. They'll be.
Speaker 2:They'll look at my doomsday vehicle and they're like um, you have gone past the allotment of one junk car per yard yes, and also like, if you're gonna go out there into the wasteland and get blood on your uh car, you must wash it off before re-entering the hoa. Uh, wasn't there someone who asked on youtube about what an hoa is?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, because they, because they don't have that uh same thing and where they're from um. And a lot of their questions were like about like what legally they could do, like if they could affect somebody. And I don't have the answers for that, I don't know. I don't know what happens when we make the HOA mad.
Speaker 2:I don't really understand either. Our HOA is very chill, yeah, thankfully. It's really just like stupid things about the golf course, but we can paint our house any color and they don't care if we let our grass grow long.
Speaker 1:So we're not in Laurie Calcaterra's.
Speaker 2:HOA.
Speaker 6:We definitely are.
Speaker 2:Last but not least, before we get to a little promo of Jim X Dodge's zombie book, the Bite. Big congratulations to Oneshi Press and Laurie Calcaterra for fully funding and going beyond your Kickstarters for Path of the Pale Rider and Mr Guy Zombie Hunter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we saw the end of the uh of uh their campaign last night.
Speaker 2:The mr guy zombie hunters yeah and uh, path of the rider is still going on and I think in both cases it's not too late to pledge. Uh, I think over the next like few days for mr guy zombie hunter at this point you might have a couple more weeks with path of the rider. Definitely go check out. They're both really excellent series. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cannot recommend enough and they're really great people and fun to be around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this brings me to our very first elevator zombie book. Oh, we got an elevator pitch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do, yeah, should I. Are we hitting the buttons?
Speaker 2:Are we hitting the buttons? We're going to hit the play button, so we can listen to Jim talk about his book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've got to get in the elevator for this.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're in an elevator. We're in an elevator. This is a very poorly thought through segment that we'll think through more in the future. But, jim, I just want to say thank you for being the first to share with us a little bit of your book. First, to share with us a little bit of your book. Basically, how this segment emerged was we have a lot of really cool authors sending us inquiries about coming to chat with us or sharing out their books and, especially because of Dan's schedule right now, we just can't respond like quickly to all of them and schedule them in the near term. So we figured why not let folks talk about their book on the podcast and give them a couple of minutes and a voice recording to do it, and then in the future we could have them on? We have a little bit more time.
Speaker 1:And we got more time. Also, we don't have a whole lot of time to read books. This is the biggest barrier. I actually have read a little bit of Jim's book. Yeah, you love it. Yeah, he sent a PDF and I was able to use like a text to voice program while I'm driving, to basically make my own audio book version of it. But if you, if you have a book and you have an audio book, I will listen to an audio book any day of the week yeah I.
Speaker 2:if ai could be good for anything, it would be helping making uh audiobooks more accessible for indie authors, although I'm sure they would put somebody out of work somewhere it would put voice actors out of business, I know. It's always a consequence, but it would be really helpful. And I also understand why lots of indie authors don't do it, because I imagine it is not cheap.
Speaker 1:Well, let me tell you, the best plan that I have on a text-to-voice program is not a replacement for a voice actor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but regardless, even with a weird automated voice, you enjoyed the Bite. Yeah, yeah. So let's give Jim's elevator talk about his book the Bite a little play, and we highly recommend you going to check him out and buying the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what floor are we hitting?
Speaker 2:We're hitting floor 50 because we're going up to the 50th floor, 50th episode.
Speaker 1:Here we go. I'm hitting 50.
Speaker 2:Ding.
Speaker 5:Hey everybody, this is Jim X Dodge, author of the Bite. In this story we find 13-year-old Mitzi Collins, who pretends to be immune to the zombie virus so that other people will take care of her during the apocalypse. How about a short excerpt? A few blocks south, the air cooled and the smoke thinned A little further, and they were finally able to clear the vapor from their lungs. They were just about to start down the sidewalk when they heard someone whistling off-key. Can't you hum, or something? The whistling continued, then stopped. Suddenly there was the sound of a scuffle. Hey, don't do that. I told you to stop. No, you asked me to stop, which I obviously didn't do. I know that's why I'm kicking your ass. You couldn't kick my ass if you had an army of Green Berets led by John Wayne's ghost.
Speaker 5:Let me go, you'll ruin my shirt. It went on like that for a while. Finally, angela's eyes widened and she stepped out into the middle of the street. Mog Fuchsia, stop that fighting, she commanded. And if that doesn't let your thirst for the bite, I don't know what will. You can find me online. I'm on Instagram, at JimXDodge, facebook at Underground JimX. My publishing company is Earth Island Books, which is conveniently at earthislandbookscom, or you can order the bite from your favorite online bookseller. Price is right. Book is great. I know you're going to love it, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Jim, that was fun Dang. Oh wow, we're here at the 50th floor. That was fast. I guess nobody else wanted to get on the elevator.
Speaker 2:No, or straight to the top, all enrapt by jim's uh description. Mitzi sounds so nefarious.
Speaker 1:Very smart too I I love that part of the book.
Speaker 2:By the way, um those two characters are hilarious and frustrating more than fuchsia yeah, they're, they're twins is there a backstory behind their names, um, or is this a question I'll have to ask jim sometime?
Speaker 1:yeah, you should ask jim, okay because, um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna give any details away about his book, but I'll I will say that they are my favorite characters because they are ridiculous. And also I'm picturing when, uh, when I was, when I was reading it, I was picturing sugar and spice from rupaul's drag race. Okay, that helps me picture these people.
Speaker 2:Yeah were they drag queens? When I was reading it, I was picturing Sugar and Spice from. Rupaul's Drag.
Speaker 2:Race. Okay, that helps me picture these people. Yeah, were they drag queens? I don't think so. Okay, well, I want to give you credit, jim, for writing a 13-year-old girl point of view and from Dan's description of it sounds like really well, which I think is. I think like, how would I write a male point of view, 13 year old boy I would have a hard time. So I really appreciate when authors write outside of like their direct experience. I think that's really cool. Yeah, uh. So, yeah, thanks for being the first. Hopefully there will be many. We've got a few folks that have reached out that. I think we'll be having those soon, but for now, go check out the bite. Go to islandbookscom. All of the info Jim shared will be in the show notes. Yeah, and now it is time for the evil magic chicken. Zombie t-shirt giveaway.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's time.
Speaker 2:We've been building this how long?
Speaker 1:have we been building to?
Speaker 2:this? I don't know, it's morphed quite a bit over the weeks.
Speaker 1:I mean, when was Con Plan 8888? It's like in the 20s.
Speaker 2:It was a while ago, and then I'll always give shout out and credit to Brian from Zompocalypse Zompocalypse podcast, who suggested that we have a giveaway for people who just go on and talk about or not talk cluck, yeah, like evil, magic, chicken, zombies, and it's been great. So we've had quite a few clucks. Not everybody gave names. I think about 15 people gave me their names and there were another 20 that, uh, I don't know who you are, so my apologies wow, that's a lot of people it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of people clucked. They clucked for that t-shirt, also the t-shirt. Let's describe it. What is? What is this person gonna get before I hit the? Oh, I mean it's a shirt.
Speaker 1:It's definitely a shirt. Whatever size you like, it's got a chicken on it. That's an evil magic zombie and there's magic happening on it. There's definitely magic there's some skulls With glowing eyes Glowing eyes and it's drawn by Leah.
Speaker 2:It is Well, most of it. Some of it is, I think, like the two chicken skulls on the side and the background behind the evil magic chicken I did not do but the evil magic chicken I did and the evil magic chicken skull staring straight out at you I drew, so I can take credit for that. And then dan did the rest. It was a collaboration between the both of us. Yeah, and it does not say zombie book club podcast, because it doesn't. You know, I it doesn't. I don't have an excuse. I don't have control over this part of the podcast yeah uh.
Speaker 2:So, without further ado, what we're gonna do is I'm going to hit. Uh. I put the list of potential folks who could be in the running for this onto wheel of namescom. And here's the folks who are in the running stephanie, britney, eric, christ, chris Tyner, cj, matt, sarah, josh, ollie and Kate. All of you are in the wheel of namescom. I'm going to spin the wheel. I didn't hear my name in there.
Speaker 2:You're not getting a free one. I did so many clucks, yeah, but you didn't enter the competition Shit. And also, this is not free for us. We are buying the shirt to give to them. So, either way, if you won, you'd be buying your own shirt. Are you ready for me to spin the wheel of fortune and see who gets to keep? Forever more? Spin the wheel of destiny. Okay, let's go. Let's see who the winner is. You're not gonna believe this. It's ollie. Ollie, what I feel like? I feel like that looks like favoritism in a way, because we've been mentioning them a lot lately. But, ollie, you did win. Ollie won. I'm gonna screen capture it so everybody knows this is real. Yeah, it's not rigged. Yeah, it's not. Um, that's awesome. Congratulations, ollie. You can get a T-shirt. We also have a dog handkerchief, a baby onesie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you want a?
Speaker 2:baby onesie instead of a shirt. We need to actually get like a baby doll and zombify it and then get a onesie, and then we could really have our zombie baby. Yeah, and we could raise it.
Speaker 2:That's neither here nor there. Ollie, we'll send you a message and ask you what you would like and in what size, uh, and get that to you. Congratulations, ollie. Yeah, congrats, ollie, you won. Long time listener, first time caller. Uh, what is uh? Evil magic chicken, zombies, favorite um classical musician again, dan oh, it's uh kesha the instagram poll said beyonce oh, but actually ollie has informed us it's wow.
Speaker 1:It still works, even when I do it you know there was a comment on youtube that said that they absolutely love ollie and have for a very long time A real Ollie Stan. This person was, but they absolutely hate his dad jokes and yeah, that's top tier dad joke right there.
Speaker 2:It is. It is wonderful. That's why I love it. So, yeah, thank you everybody for giving us your clucks. It was really fun to receive them and play them, and for those of you who did not give a name, you can always go or didn't win, you can always go get a t-shirt yourself. There again are going to be more with our logo on them as soon as dan has time. That's all we can really promise. I can't give you an official date for that. Um, and there's also stickers. If you're like not really a shirt person, there's really cute stickers. They're only like a99. And then maybe it's like six bucks with shipping.
Speaker 1:Buy 50 stickers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it is cute If I do say so myself. It was my first cartoon I ever drew.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's amazing.
Speaker 6:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Dan.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm really enjoying zombie cartoons. This is a whole new world for me.
Speaker 1:You've been drawing zombie cartoons.
Speaker 2:I was trying to get to 50 zombies for the 50th episode, but as of this recording, there are only 10. So I don't think it's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Cut and paste five times.
Speaker 2:I could. I could. I mean I have been using a basic template and then drawing different kinds of people over top of it, but that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been amazing, Leah, I can't believe Ollie won. I am intoxicated amazing Leah.
Speaker 2:I can't believe Ollie won I am intoxicated.
Speaker 1:It's been 50 episodes. We made it. We made it to the end and you know we've got some homework for you guys. You know a lot of you might be on summer break but you got homework and it's to read the Remaining by DJ Mole.
Speaker 2:I'm halfway through. I ate half the book, but it took me three days, not one. Wow, that's actually pretty good. Yeah, it's real, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. There is a dog named tango, and I live in terror of the possibility of this dog dying, and dan won't tell me so I don't know I will not reveal halfway through.
Speaker 1:Dog is alive and you know what, as long as you don't finish the book.
Speaker 2:Oh no, you just spoiled it. I didn't say anything. I literally I just yelled at you on the podcast. This is upsetting. Don't read it. Well, I'm going to read it and I will say it's really good. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know this is, this is a. I would call this like a, like a gritty, like kind of tactically focused gritty zombie survival story.
Speaker 2:There's a really awesome bunker Like. If you want some inspiration like bunker inspo, you should at least listen to the first few chapters of this, when Lee Harden is in his bunker, which, like a lot of authors would, I think, make not very interesting, but he does a good job of making it interesting. I'll just say one thing there's some red tube realness. Yeah, I'm not a lot of detail, don't worry, but um, it's mentioned in an appropriate context and I'm like, yeah, that's that feels accurate for what you might do in a bunker by yourself, that's.
Speaker 1:That's one of the omens of the apocalypse is red tube is down yeah you can't get to it, uh. But yeah, it's a series about captain lee harden. He's, uh, he's a soldier, that's. His job is to go into a bunker when bad things are about to happen and survive, whatever it is usually he's planning for, like a biological attack or a nuclear attack, and he goes down.
Speaker 2:He thinks it's just a drill, but a month later he comes out and zombies happen, a different kind of zombie, a scary different kind of zombie, which we'll talk more about when we get to episode 55. But I will say I think this is a unique type of zombie. It's pretty unique, yeah, I'd say so. Uh, much more crafty than your average zombie in a way that is terrifying to me personally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, um, I've I've always kind of been like a zombie purist and I I was worried when I first started reading the book and I'm like, oh no, I don't know if I like these zombies, but I grew to love them and uh, and I'm very, I'm very happy that he made the decision that he did because it needed the story needed this kind of zombie yeah, it has real grit.
Speaker 2:It's uh similar to sylvester's book, where, like, I'm turning away well, in this case it's in my ears because I'm listening to it while I'm doing things. So I'm like, oh goodness, okay, moving on very, very gory, but uh, really well done. And the next episode we have coming up is on black summer yeah, if you guys watched black summer on netflix, you should it's. It's mostly good. You'll hear my thoughts about it next week.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like 99 good.
Speaker 1:I'd say it's 80 good okay, well, we have different opinions about it. Um, I loved it, but uh, you know we're gonna be talking about that, um, and uh, yeah, also, you can call us. We have a phone number. It's kind of like a burner phone, like if we're dealing drugs in the 90s, but uh, you can call us at 614-699-0006 and you can leave us a voicemail. We won't pick up. You leave us a voicemail, we deliver the drugs. It can be up to three minutes long. Or you can email us at zombie book club podcast at gmailcom. You can also send us your elevator pitches about your book if you've written one, and why people should read it.
Speaker 2:There has to be zombies.
Speaker 1:That's the only rule. There has to be zombies. We have had messages from people that are like I wrote a book about wizards and it's a good book. It sounds like an amazing book. Unfortunately, if there's no book and we're like, it sounds, it sounds like an amazing book. Unfortunately, if there's no zombies, then we don't want it.
Speaker 2:Our focus is very narrow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have. We have an autistic focus on zombies, thanks to Dan.
Speaker 2:But we love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I focus all of my autism into zombies.
Speaker 2:You can also send us a survival story, if you've got one. We're stocking up a couple of stories for survival. All of my autism into zombies. You can also send us a survival story, if you've got one. We're stacking up a couple of stories. Um, for survival. Our survival story is episode number three and sort of like a mini series we've been doing. You can continue to send evil, magic chicken, zombie clucks. I'll never say no to a cluck yeah I love.
Speaker 1:A good cluck yeah, or if there's other animals that you think could be evil and magic yeah, big j, big James, the bear from Path to Pale Rider, you want to impersonate him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a cow from Mr Guy Zombie Hunter.
Speaker 1:Or just tell us how your day is. Yeah, either one, we're lonely we live in the woods.
Speaker 2:It's true, and before you go, I know you're thinking, you know I'm going to. I'm going to press pause now because I'm. This is basically done. At the end of this episode. There is a little surprise for you, so you should stick around. But before you listen to the rest of it, please subscribe. Rate review. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, anywhere. There's all of us. Leave us a little review, Give us five stars. We made some jokes in the beginning about giving us less than five stars, which I regret because people took it seriously and they were like four point nine and four point seven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we will never come back from that.
Speaker 2:No, it's too late, ruined.
Speaker 1:If we were Uber drivers, we'd be out of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, either way, help us spread like a virus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, put the, put the, put those dirty virus viruses into our ears, your ears.
Speaker 2:And thanks for sticking around For those of you who've been around from the beginning, like brian. Thank you for those of you who have shown up a little bit later um, like zombie author mom kate almeri, thank you. It's just really cool to continue to grow this community and deepen the relationships we've built, and I look forward to hearing from you all. Yeah, thanks, thanks for stopping by, everybody. I stand you bye, bye.
Speaker 1:The apocalypse is nigh bye, don't, don't die, don't die.
Speaker 2:And, without further ado, our favorite Evil, magic, chicken, zombie Clucks, just for you, all in a row. There's six minutes.
Speaker 5:Enjoy, meditate, bye-bye why are chickens so funny, especially chicken zombies.
Speaker 3:Because, hi, this is Tyner, you can feel free to use my name Malia from way back, and I wanted to give you guys my best zombie chicken impression.
Speaker 6:I'm not sure if you're prepared or not, but here we go.
Speaker 3:That's what I have for you. Thanks for the podcast. Guys love listening. Talk soon, bye zombie chicken.
Speaker 7:Impression time on deck is 12.08pm cock-a-doodle-brain zombie chicken, zombie chicken.
Speaker 6:Here you go. Leah Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah, blah blah, blah, blah, look, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that.
Speaker 6:No more, no more. I'm a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Wayne W-w-w-Wayne, w-w-w-w-wayne, w-w-w-wayne, w-w-wayne, w-w-wayne, w-w-w-wayne, w-w-w-wayne, w-w-w-wayne, w-w-w-wayne, w-w-w-wayne, w-w-w.
Speaker 7:Hey, it's Ollie. I figured I should finally give a call. Long-time listener. First-time caller. Just wanted to share a quick story about high school and some evil magic chickens. So back in high school I did a quick study on the effects of music with animals in captivity. So I visited a farm where they were raising evil magic chickens, embellished so as to be topical, and I ran a quick poll of a thousand chickens asked who their favorite classical undead composer was. A hundred percent unanimous said Mark. Okay, that is all. Have a good day.
Speaker 4:Yes, hello there. This is Christian Aka Lotus. I hope both of you are well and I think it's time for me to attempt this zombie chicken cluck. And just a small disclaimer before I start. I have been sitting here trying to come up with a cluck and I can't stop laughing Because I think it's really, really funny. So if I break down, bear with me with me because, yeah, I just can't stop laughing. So this is going to be my attempt. Okay, let's go. What am I doing? Wow, wow, okay. Yeah, wow, this is going to be on the internet, oh, no, but yeah, that was my attempt and I hope both of you are going to have a great day and all the people listening as well. Okay, bye, bye, then, and cluck, cluck, zombie cl.
Speaker 7:Okay, bye-bye then and cluck, cluck, zombie cluck. That's for you, okay, bye-bye.