Seattle. The Emerald City. Ask someone that’s not from here what they know about Washington state and they’ll probably tell you one of several things: it and rains too much, most of the famous people from here are dead like Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Lee and Kurt Cobain, and depending on who you ask, “That’s where the Twilight series takes place!”

In addition to Nirvana leading the grunge movement of the 90′s, Bill Gates brought Silicon Valley to Seattle with Microsoft, and Howard Schultz started the caffeinated revolution with Starbucks coffee. Now in 2010, Ryan Reiter of the Red, White & Dead zombie walk in Fremont brings the worlds’ first-ever celebration of the living dead to Seattle, zombie capital of the world, offering a new level of interactive fan experience with zomBcon International.

The city itself is a veritable melting pot of all sorts of people from all sorts of cultures and walks of life and orientations. It’s where economical and green hippie crunchy granola lifestyle meets the cutting microchipped edge. Does it really come as any surprise that Japan’s most well known and well loved pop culture icon is teaming up with a convention of the living dead at the Seattle Center this Halloween? It’s a veritable no-braaaiiinerrr.

Sanrio, the corporation behind Hello Kitty, is celebrating their 50^th anniversary with their Small Gift mobile pop-up tour across the United States this fall. The Tour kicks off in mid October with its’ first official stop in Seattle. The tour will feature stops in Las Vegas, New York and Atlanta.

ZomBcon will feature a plethora of special guests including the original godfather of the modern zombie, George Romero, Bruce Campbell, and Malcolm McDowell to name a few. This will not be your usual convention, yes there will be autographs and pictures, but zomBcon is offering the latest ultimate experience in geek fandom with hands-on discussions, panels, film screenings and a full on parade of the living dead.

To top it off, also in attendance at Seattle Center are the Ladies of Faith and they will be singing their songs of praise mashed against the shambling hungry mobs’ moans for warm flesh. Hello Kitty, Zombies and Jesus may seem like strange bedfellows, but it speaks volumes about the vast diversity we have in the city.

Even a few thousand people dressing up like zombies to break a Guinness World record twice isn’t considered out of place. Leave it to the geeks to raise the bar for obsessive fan culture just in time for Halloween.

Join ZomBcon International and get your geek on Friday October 29th to Sunday October 31st at Seattle Center.

The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

We humans as a species are very protective of our bodies. The mere thought of getting sick and being brought to our knees from within by our own immune system will make even the strongest of people quiver in fear. In the dark ages it was believed that illnesses and ailments were ‘bad spirits’ or curses and were met with sometimes primitive treatments until the late 1800′s and the discovery of bacteria by Robert Koch. Through modern medicine we’ve discounted superstition and old wives’ tales as myth and fallacy in favor of establishing legitimate scientific medical proof of living organisms as the cause and developed appropriate treatments and vaccinations for illnesses that may have proven life-threatening to prior generations. Yet in spite of all our amazing breakthroughs and medical advances the fear of bodily invasion has never changed. This is why a zombie, literally, embodies our worst fear come true.

Like so many predatory creatures found in nature, the majority of a zombies’ power comes from the fear of its’ bite, next to their abundance in numbers and seemingly adept hunting ability. We’ve known for years that a bite from a zombie has proven fatal 99.999% percent of the time but we’ve never analyzed why. Let’s look deeper shall we?

A living human mouth is rife with up to 100 million organisms per mL of saliva (as many as 190 different species) residing on every tooth and in every crack and crevice. These bacterium serve many different functions within the mouth, some are helpful and aid in the pre-digestion of food or fight disease, while others can cause something as minor as bad breath or cause serious illness. The number of bad bacteria is reduced if the individual makes good oral hygiene a regular habit.

You ever forget to brush your teeth before going to bed one night? That film covering your teeth and gums the next morning when you wake up is plaque, oral bacteria, that grows rampantly in the human mouth. If left unchecked, this plaque will transform into a veritable Petri dish of bacteria and fungi since the mouth has perfect conditions to support growth at an alarming rate.

Now imagine this person has been dead just long enough to begin putrefaction before reanimation. You’ve got a whole new set of bacterium trying to eat away necrotic tissue along with whatever was previously living in the person’s body. Also, the variable of whether or not this zombie has been eating someone or not is another critical factor.

“Why you ask. Zombies just love entrails. They seem to have a particular fondness for intestines. Our guts are just full of even more fun gastrointestinal flora that normally help us digest the food we eat and excrete the waste. Add a heaping dollop of this into our lovely stew of microbes and you have Howard Hughes’ (or Howie Mandel’s for that matter) worst nightmare. You ever notice how a zombie’s favorite spot is to go for the trapezius muscle in between the shoulder and the neck/carotid artery? Picture all this filth and nastiness entering into your bloodstream, put the entry site near a major artery or venal system and you’re essentially dead within the minute. The resulting massive infection is what causes a bitten person to expire. The human immune system is only so strong and it cannot fight all the infections off, so the system fails and the subject dies allowing for resurrection.

Treatment with all known disinfectants such as povodone iodine, isopropyl rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide; antibiotics from penicillin to the worldsstrongest anti-virals have proven ineffective. The only known ‘cure’ for a bite from mortiis viventiis is the immediate death of the bitten subject via decapitation or significant trauma to the brain.

Sidenotes:

-A note about the strength of a human jaw:

From the website of dental health:

“Normal chewing places about 68 lbs/sq inch of pressure on the back teeth. If you intentionally clench your teeth you may increase that force to about 150 lbs/sq inch. However, an individual who clenches and grinds their teeth subconsciously at night can place up 1200 lbs/sq inch of force. Sounds like an industrial grinding machine!” ¹

-Amputation should never be considered a viable treatment. The chances of catching the infection before it gets into the bloodstream are minute

-With amputation there is the SERIOUS risk of exsanguination (bleeding to death) unless a proper tourniquet is applied and the bleeding stopped. Also there is greater risk of infection at the amputation site.

-The resulting outbreak from untreated zombie bites is simple mathematics. Infection is an equation: You start with one zombie (Patient Zero as it has been known), this one becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight and so on and so forth spiraling outward exponentially until the human population as we know it is no more.

Malcolm McDowell is considered one of the worlds most easily recognizable cult movie icons as the milk-drinking, Nasdat-slovo speaking, Beethoven loving ultra-violent madman of Stanley Kubrick’s film Clockwork Orange

Having played his fair share of lunatics and encountered psychopaths aplenty, he’s even seen the post Apocalyptic world more than once. “So, What the f#@! does Malcolm McDowell have to do with zombies,” you ask?

Slandering me best droog are ye? You’ll take a right tolchoking upside your gulliver I hear another stinking slanderin slovo out of ye!

*ahem*

Plenty, though not a seasoned zombie killer, he does have an impressive notch on his belt. He is known and hated by Trekkies around the world – some to the point of death threats – as being the man responsible for killing Captain Kirk in Star Trek Generations. He’ll be joining the festivities at ZomBcon International this Halloween weekend at Seattle Center (Friday, October 29th through Sunday October 31st) as a featured guest joining such other popular movie icons like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell along with many other notable names.

Malcolm will be signing autographs for fans, as well as featured in a number of panels including the outrageous pop culture showdown game show, Family Feud: Trekkies vs Zombies on Sunday afternoon as well as midnight screening of A Clockwork Orange on Friday at SIFF Cinema.

Until next time my living dead droogs, viddy well, viddy well.

It has been established the George A Romero is the indisputable godfather of the living dead. Recent reports trickling in issue a warning that Friday October 29th will prove to be the darkest day of horror Seattle and the world has ever known, and by darkest I mean brightest. zomBcon is bringing the original patriarch of the modern zombie, George Romero to Seattle for the 25th anniversary of Day of the Dead.

Romero himself will be honored for his body of work in the genre. To showcase the 25th Anniversary of Day of the Dead we’ve gathered the stars of the movie Terry Alexander (John), John Amplas (Ted Fisher) and Jarlath Conroy (Bill McDermott) for the biggest red carpet event catered specifically for the living dead.

The story moves from Romero’s usual locale of Pennsylvania to Florida where the seemingly last living survivors are forced to band together underground in an abandoned missile facility. A small squad of soldiers oversee the safety of a few scientists racing to try and find a cure before the human race becomes extinct.

Cinematically the film was overshadowed during its July 1985 release of Back to the Future that same month and Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead less than a month later. At the time Day received criticism for being overly ‘dark’ or ‘preachy’ when compared to Romero’s take on 70′s consumerism in his classic Dawn of the Dead.

Day was meant to be Romero’s epic conclusion to his Dead trilogy with a budget of seven million dollars (Night had $114,000 while Dawn had $650,000 for budgets). Romero had stated that he intended it to be his ‘Gone with The Wind’ of his Series ending when the dead stop rising. The original script had human trained SWAT zombies living underground with a scientific research staff and being pitted against the wild zombies that roam above ground as well a band of rebel civilians within the complex.

Sadly the studio was not impressed and slashed the films’ budget by half down to a mere $3.5 million. This massive dent forced Romero to do some heavy rewrites, abandoning several plot points and many supporting characters. Though most of the story’s main points remained intact, some of the elements of this original script would not be expanded upon until 20 years later when Romero would return to the screen in Land of the Dead.

Today the film stands as a testament to the Reaganomic politics of the day and hints at the paranoia of war with our nuclear neighbors. Among the gorehounds and horror movie fanatics Day of the Dead doesn’t disappoint with some of the most shocking effects ever done by Tom Savini and the Kurtzman, Nicotero and Berger SFX crew.

Join us this weekend to welcome George and the cast of Day of the Dead for its 25^th Anniversary Reunion at zomBcon at Seattle Center. George and the cast will be on hand to discuss the filming, answer your questions, pose for photographs and be signing merchandise on Friday at 12 o’clock at the Exhibition Hall Showcase Stage. We’ll see you at Seattle Center Halloween weekend!

In celebration of his body of work in  Zombie culture, Billy will be the featured artist at the convention and create an original design for the Official ZomBcon 2010 Seattle Poster that will be unveiled in September on the website. Billy will be in attendance with a booth with all of his collection for fans to purchase and sign autographs at ZomBcon starting on October 30th at the Seattle Center.

Billy’s “Uncle Sam”work will also be the Official poster of the Red, White, and Dead Zombie Event and featured on the Limited Edition t-shirt, only 4,027 will be printed and available at the event.

This 4th of July, ZomBcon and the Fremont Outdoor Movies attempt to break another Guinness World Record for the “Largest Zombie Walk” on the planet and bring the record home to American soil from Britain.

Founder of ZomBcon, Ryan Reiter spoke with Billy and and his wife Heather last week about the invitation to ZomBcon 2010. Reiter says “They were very excited to be heading to the Northwest for the Halloween weekend for the first time ever, meeting their fans, and look forward to experiencing ZomBcon.”

For more details about Billy at ZomBcon, go to the full article on ZomBcon’s official website

VIVA LA ZOMBIE!

The godfather of undead cinema returns with his sixth zombie film in which two rival families feud on a remote island—one wants to destroy any and all walking dead, while the other holds back in hopes of finding a cure to return their undead relatives to life.

Okay, SIFF and Zombies are coming to Seattle this May and your invited! The Seattle International Film Festival is giving Seattle the Northwest Premier of George A. Romero’s lastest Zombie adventure, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD at the Egyptian Theater in Capitol Hill on Friday, May 21st.

GET YOUR ZOM ROM ON! Come on out and get dressed to kill for an unforgettable movie party. ZomBcon and the Seattle International Film Festival are proud to present the Northwest premiere of George A. Romero’s newest Zombie film, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD.

It all starts at BOOM NOODLE at 10pm with ZomBcon hosting a Happy Hour at SIFF’s Premiere Festival Lounge for drinks, eats, conversation, braaaaains and fun giveaways.

If you want to be entered to win cool prizes, go to our Facebook Fan page and RSVP for the opportunity to win official ZomBcon gear and WIN a ALL ACCESS PASS for ZomBcon 2010 in Seattle!

ZomBcon’s Ryan Reiter and Seattle Zombie Walk’s Eric Pope will be in attendance and will be leading the walk over to the screening at the Egyptian Theater for the Midnight screening of the film. Will the grandfather of Zombies be there in attendance, we don’t know, but anything can happen and invite you out for a truly unique experience to meet other fellow Zombies in the community.

DON’T FORGET: YOU MUST BE DRESSED UP AS A ZOMBIE TO GET INTO THE PARTY

EVENT TIME LINE

10pm – ZomBcon Happy Hour Party – Boom Noodle (Capitol Hill) Google Map Link: 1121 East Pike Street

11PM – ZOMBIE WALK – Boom Noodle to Egyptian Theater

12AM (Midnight) The film will be screening on Friday May 21 at 12am (MIDNIGHT) at The Egyptian theater in Capitol Hill.

HOW DO I GET TICKETS?

To guarantee your seat for the screening, tickets go on sale starting on Thursday, May 6th online at www.siff.net. Tickets are just $11.

ZomBcon will be holding a  ticket giveaways on Facebook in the next few weeks and for those who love a great deal and a discount, can take their chances held at the Egyptian for just $9 starting at noon.

Go to ZomBcon’s Official website and watch our Fan page for updates, news, and fun giveaways. Viva La Zombie!

See you there!

Design created by Zombies Happen

A rare find that we discovered last summer at the Hollywood Outdoor Cinema for a special screening of Shaun of the Dead. local LA based company, Zombies Happen created this shirt. If you want one, contact them.

Seattle became the Zombie Capital of the World" last Fourth of July, this year they attempt to go for it again

It’s Officially back! Zombies attack Fremont to walk their way back into the history books as the Fremont Outdoor Movies team up with ZomBcon to return the crown of “Zombie Capital of the World” back to Seattle.

Seattle P-I’s Monica Guzman gave us a shout out on their Big Blog today and offers a teaser of what’s happening in Fremont this Fourth of July.

The Fremont Outdoor Movies is counting on all of Seattle to come out and represent their city to return the Guinness World Record back to its rightful owner and crown Seattle the “Zombie Capital of the World” once and for all in the Dead Center of the Universe – Fremont.

The Zombie walk world record is 4,026 and currently held by the Big Chill Music Festival in the England, which narrowly edged out Seattle’s 3,894 last August. Event Producer, Ryan Reiter believes it will take 10,000 zombies to hold onto it for a while, but is confident Seattle can do it. Eric Pope of The Seattle Zombie Walk organization is back to help unite and lead the official Zombie Walk this July and excited about the possibilitIes.

This year’s festivities will return with a huge Thriller Dance, Zombie fashion show, musical performances, special guests and all time Zombie classic, George A. Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD. This year’ event will also include a blood drive, canned food drive and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the  local non profit organization, the Seattle International Film Festival in support of their new film center that will be at the Seattle Center.

Jon Hegeman, Founder of the Fremont Outdoor Movies tells us “This is all about community celebration, having fun, supporting a great cause and not about bragging rights; but who doesn’t love a little healthy rivalry for a great cause to make things more interesting? Fremont is the perfect neighborhood to celebrate such a fun accomplishment.”

In response to skeptics, Reiter says “There are a lot of people watching us who don’t think Seattle can do it, one being Grand Rapids, Michigan, who continue to claim they hold the Guinness World Record. It remains unofficial to this date…so I leave it to the people of Seattle to decide its fate to bring it back home. I know we can do it.”

Read more about Red, White, and Dead at the Big Blog here

The Gang at ZOMBIES HAPPEN joined us last year at our Los Angeles screening of SHAUN OF THE DEAD at the Hollywood Outdoor Cinema for some serious Zom- Rom Comin’  and came complete with dedicated Zombie gear. My personal fav was the their limited edition I CRICKET BAT ZOMBIES, in honor of our feature presentation