Nihilism Pays.

Not too long ago I posted a review of the first season of the nihilistic TV show PREACHER. Although I found large sections of the production to be actually offensive, there were enough bright and humorous touches for me to like it as a whole. Part of that had to do with the very simple (and selfish) fact that I find Ruth Negga to be extremely attractive, and another part of it was that I saw so much comedy and humanity in the way Jackie Earle Hailey portrayed the character of Odin Quinncannon.

Last week--because I had enjoyed the previous season--I tuned in for the first episode. I wish I had not done so.

For me, all of the humor was gone. The nihilism was still there--in great abundance--but the humor was missing. What they were trying to pass off as humor was just a kind of sick arrogance that I found merely disgusting. When one of the heroes casually murders the pet of an innocent man, and that same innocent man in hunting for the lost pet has his tongue pulled from his living face...well...you can see where I might be just a little bit put off. That's the point where I stopped watching, and that's the point where I decided that I won't bother with the show anymore.

Sorry, Ruth. Not even your presence can get me to watch another episode of PREACHER.

But nihilism these days seems to really pay in great dividends. All around the world of novels, comics, TV, and film, the worst of the worst seems to be in great demand. Novels that are nothing but racist gun-porn sell like mad. Movies that feature one inhuman murder after another are tops. I know this is nothing truly new, but the unrestrained excess of it has reached a point where I just cannot tolerate it.

Hell. Blame it on my age. Or on the point where my own level of tolerance has been saturated. Whatever it is, I've had enough.

Apparently the most popular cable TV show in the history of the medium is now embroiled in a vast legal battle over the billions (yes, you read that right--billions) of dollars it has generated for the network that aired it. I am, of course, talking about that Queen of Nihilism: THE WALKING DEAD.

That THE WALKING DEAD was copped from the work of George A Romero without remuneration to said fellow is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that while Romero's work was social commentary, the TV show gleaned from the vision of Romero and John Russo is just simple, nasty, violence-infused grue. But my how that shit sells! It has sold to tunes so vast that it has created its own self-perpetuating industries. Starting as a comic trimmed from Romero & Russo's zombie vision, it branched out into collected graphic novels, a TV series, video games, T-shirts, media conventions, etc. and so on. If there's a way to squeeze a dollar out of it, they have done so.

And enter now the original director and show-runner Frank Darabont who was chased away from the series and is now suing. There is something extremely satisfying in watching these Hollywood folk fighting over the steaming corpse of a visual property the way the rotting zombies struggle to get their piece of a recently murdered human.

I have to laugh.

There's still some actual humor to be found in the nihilism of true life.

For what it's worth, Mr. Darabont--I hope you win.

Daryl Dixon is Really...

In the past, I've written some brief essays on Jesus figures in popular media. I was thinking of this recently in relation to the popular cable TV series THE WALKING DEAD.

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I have watched that series since its premiere. I'm pretty sure that I've seen every episode, even though it's often a truly awful TV show in just about every way. And so, why do I watch it? Well...because zombies! It's not that I like the idea of zombies in popular media--to the contrary. I have grown to actually hate zombie fiction and zombie films and zombie comics and zombie games and zombie toys, etc. I find the whole scene truly disgusting.

So, then, why would I continue to watch THE WALKING DEAD?

I have to say that I watch it partly out of morbid curiosity. Just the fact that it exists fascinates me, and the fact that it prospers is just bizarre. There are other cable TV horror shows, and I don't watch those. I sometimes look at the others, but I'm not dedicated to them, at all.

So, just to get all of that out of the way, I can't really say why I watch THE WALKING DEAD, but I do keep up with it. Let's just leave it at morbid curiosity toward what I hope is a brief cultural phenomenon and let it go.

The point I wanted to get back to is that I noticed some Jesus imagery when it comes to the supporting character of Daryl Dixon as played by Norman Reedus. And why would I even notice something like this? Perhaps because the Jesus story is so often used in modern films and fiction. Writers keep finding new ways to tell the story. Over and over and over. As I said, I've briefly covered some of these reinterpretations in the past, so it is something I think about when I begin to see it.

What's different about Daryl Dixon as Jesus is that it is something that has slowly emerged and I wonder if the writers have held this idea all along, or if it's something that they decided to do late in the game. I'd like to ask them. I'd also like to ask the show-runners if it's even true, or if I'm reading tea leaves that aren't there.

Briefly, I've begun to see the character of Daryl as a Jesus figure. There have been all sorts of little clues. His rough life as an outcast. The way he feels compassion when there is no real reason for it. His capacity for kindness when he should feel something else entirely.

Carry that cross.

Then there are the physical clues left behind by the creators of the show. Daryl's ever-present crossbow that he carries like a burden. The wound he suffered in his side. His near-death by a stream where he was seemingly saved by the ghost of his brother. If that wasn't a stand-in for a baptism by a cruel, Old Testament philosopher and Daryl's emergence as a man with a new way of explaining the world, then I've not seen it at all. And then, after the baptism/rib wound, he is all but shot in the head and survives what should have been death.

Badass John the Baptist.

 
For the fans of Daryl (and they appear to be legion), they shouldn't worry. I don't think he'll be killed the way so many other characters on the show have met their ends. But he will go. I don't think things will end well for him. But when he does finally croak...I think it'll be as some sort of ultimate sacrifice.

"This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

Stay tuned...

(Images copyright by AMCTV.)

Best Zombies in Media

For years I've loved the zombie trope created by George Romero. As I've mentioned before, his creation of the shambling undead incorporate and encompass just about every fear and phobia you could name. The possibilities for themes both covert and overt are endless. This is one reason that I felt I had to try my hand at penning a zombie novel.

So, I want to do a list. Everyone seems to like compiling lists. Lists of bests, worsts, must-haves, you-name-it. The following here is a simple list of the best uses of the zombie in various forms of art. This is by no means a complete list, but is a compilation of the creations that spring to mind and which were instrumental in my own development as a writer, and as a creator of the zombie novel, THE LIVING END.

Top of the Heap: This one is easy. The original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD directed by George A. Romero, screenplay by Romero and John Russo, a variation on a theme by Richard Matheson. This movie is the masterpiece of claustrophobia and paranoia. Romero never made it a secret that this film was an allegory based on the Richard Matheson novel I AM LEGEND. To this day, the original NIGHT is still the best adaptation of Matheson's seminal themes.

"They're coming to get you, Barbara."

Second: The original DAWN OF THE DEAD film by George Romero. In this film we see for the first time the zombie utilized as the instrument of apocalypse. It was as brilliant a move as the original concept Romero revealed in the 1968 film. The underlying commentary of consumerism has not been lost on the audience over the intervening years. If there's a movie with a more kinetic and frantic opening, I've not encountered it.

"What floor is this?"

Third: Richard Matheson's novel, I AM LEGEND. Yeah, I know. It's vampires and not zombies. But it might as well be zombies, the way Matheson portrays the pathetic and ravaged infected who have surrounded the last living man on Earth. I encountered this novel when I was fifteen years old and the first line grabbed me. I was hooked. It's a pity that no one has ever done the novel justice as a film. Until then, we have Romero's first zombie movie, and that's good enough.

Richard Matheson, one of the great fantasists of our age.

Fourth: Len Barnhart's indie novel, REIGN OF THE DEAD. I stumbled upon this novel after meeting Len Barnhart either at a convention or online. I honestly can't recall how I first found the book. But once I'd found it, I was really happy that I had. When Mr. Barnhart published REIGN OF THE DEAD there had been virtually no other zombie novels. To my knowledge, only Phil Nutman's WET WORK and the various novelizations of Romero zombie movies preceded it. In those days, who the heck would publish a novel about flesh-eating zombies? Well, apparently, nearly no one. Len Barnhart pretty much started the zombie wave and created a whole new market for apocalyptic fiction about the undead overwhelming the living. The book was great when it came out and it's still great now.


Fifth: THE WALKING DEAD. Robert Kirkman wasn't the first to bring zombies to comics, but he was the first to do it effectively. There had been some notable attempts to do comic book zombies; however, Kirkman blew the others away with something the rest of them lacked: characterization. With THE WALKING DEAD you had finally found a continuing series that had people in it who were not bland cutouts. I first heard about the title when I found myself talking to fans of the comic who didn't normally even read comics! They were following the series for the simple reason that it was so well written and that the situations seemed true to them, despite the fantastic setting. For comics, zombie fiction doesn't get any better.

Zombies well done.

Sixth: WET WORK by Phil Nutman. Wet Work is a term that describes the task of killing people, principally by those who work as assassins for various governments. The world of WET WORK begins in just such a situation as a zombie plague begins to envelope the Earth. This was another what-the-heck-is-going-on-here? experience. When Nutman published this book as a mass market paperback it was unique: a zombie novel. It actually preceded REIGN OF THE DEAD and it had zombie fandom to itself for a very long time. Why Nutman never followed it up with another similar novel is a mystery. I kept waiting for another, but it never came. The book is out again in a deluxe format, and I recommend it.


Seventh: THE WALKING DEAD television series. It's not quite the series I was expecting, but it's pretty darned good, so far. If you haven't seen it, go rent the DVD or buy a set. If you're a zombie fan, you'll like it. If you enjoy drama in general, you'll probably still get a kick out of it.

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Darabont."

Well, as the seventh-born of a seventh-born of a seventh-born, I'll leave it at that lucky number. For now. In the meantime, you can buy my own zombie novel THE LIVING END in both trade paperback and Kindle.

"This guy James Robert Smith can write! Not since Philip K. Dick have I read an author who so convincingly paints the social milieu of his story's world. From the very first page I felt eerily and alarmingly at home in James Robert Smith s The Living End. Every detail is masterfully rendered on the page. Plus, he gives us zombies. And dogs! I loved The Living End. Bravo, James Robert Smith! Your book blew me away." - Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and Apocalypse of the Dead

Zombies!

I love the sub-genre of horror that we commonly call "zombie fiction". It's based on the darkest of paranoid fantasies and is a pretty rich ground for post-apocalyptic yarns. And despite the fact that a lot of the people who follow this type of work are--quite frankly--a bunch of gun-happy, racist right wing freaks, I still like the stuff.

One reason I wrote THE LIVING END was to create something within the genre that was not either overtly or sub-textually racist. The book is still hunting for a publisher...maybe there's just no room for apocalyptic fiction that's not a few words shy of The Turner Diaries.


At any rate, I'm very much looking forward to the new AMC series THE WALKING DEAD based on the comic book of the same name which is, further, based on the concepts first put to celluloid by John Russo and George A. Romero (and based on an idea they got from reading Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND).

As far as horror goes, you don't get more horrific than zombies, and the premise lends itself to just about every fear one can think of: infection, death, paranoia, claustrophobia, dispossession, alienation, xenophobia...well, you get the idea.

I'll be watching TV the night this series hits the airwaves. AMC is the only network that can make me act this way anymore.