Of course, zombies and Crazies go back much further than the Cold War, and some might even tell you that they have basis in fact, so let's start with a little zombie refresher course before we get to the heights of zombie-mania in fiction and film. Many people will tell you that zombies and reanimation of dead tissue extends back to the origins of Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean beliefs. The story goes that the "Ti Bon Ange" (or the soul) can be stolen from a body, creating a lifeless, brain-dead slave. At first, in most pop culture, that's all that zombies were, but horror and supernatural fiction slowly evolved the concept into something far more sinister. Suddenly, zombies weren't just brain-dead slaves, they were brain-hungry villains. There have been alleged "true stories" of zombies throughout history, including the adventures of Wade Davis, a doctor made famous in The Serpent and the Rainbow for investigating zombie practices in Haiti in the early '80s, but there are also "true stories" of vampires and Bigfoot, so it really all comes down to what you're willing to label as "true."
In American pop culture, zombies go back to the days of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote stories about the totally insane Dr. Herbert West, made popular in present day by the Stuart Gordon movie, Re-Animator. In Lovecraft's fiction, West would try to revive human tissue with zombie-like results. Even earlier than that, there are references to brain-dead men walking the earth as early as 1697, in a French novel called The Zombie of the Great Peru. In a French dictionary a hundred years later, the word would be used again in reference to Haiti, mentioning that floods in the area would sometimes bring buried bodies back to the surface, probably influencing the idea that the dead were returning to life.
The first landmark in the modern history of zombies in pop culture came in 1954 with the publication of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Legend is about a lone man in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles that has been overrun by bloodsucking ghouls. They're not your traditional or even your modern zombies, but Legend had a huge influence on the way zombie culture would transform over the next half-century for two main reasons. First, Legend inspired the President of Zombie-dom, George A. Romero, to make the most famous zombie film of all time, Night of the Living Dead, and second, it set up a structure that would be copied by zombie movies from then on -- a small group of people, sometime only one man, trapped in one place, surrounded by a sea of the undead. I Am Legend solidified the theme of "the evil of the world outside the home" that zombie movies would make their own for the next five decades and counting.
Dan Birlew - Tue. Jan. 24, 2012 at 09:57:14 AM
Wow, completely ripped me off.
Original source article here: http://www.danbirlew.com/why-are-zombies-so-popular/, posted 9/15/2010. Basically a paragraph by paragraph rewrite. Please find your own material, UGO Team. Regards, Dan Birlew
Paul Furfari - Tue. Jan. 24, 2012 at 11:18:32 AM
NOT plagiarism
Dan, At UGO we take plagiarism and claims of plagiarism very seriously. We understand that it's difficult being a writer and that you don't want your hard work to be pilfered and re-used by someone else. I have reviewed both texts and while you and our author did make similar structural choices, first breaking down the origins of zombies, followed by their popular rise through George Romero and his films and lastly the popular mainstream resurgence, structure is not equivalent to plagiarism. While the date on this article reads January 23, 2012, the article was originally published on Nov. 11, 2009, over 10 months before your article was posted on September 15, 2010. In fact this article is actually a duplicate copy (with references updated for the 2012) of a previous zombie history article which was created on June 24, 2008, a considerable amount of time before your article was posted. You can check that link here: http://www.ugo.com/movies/zombies-attack-pop-culture I respect your right to defend your own work, but ask you show a bit more restraint when you attack someone else and make claims of plagiarism. It's wrong and potentially damaging to authors and site reputation.
Dan Birlew - Tue. Jan. 24, 2012 at 12:58:11 PM
I didn't say plagiarism, LOL.
Little jumpy there.
Paul Furfari - Tue. Jan. 24, 2012 at 01:19:35 PM
My last response to your claims
Dan, You used a code word for plagiarism. You claimed UGO ripped you off, that we used your material and provided a link with the comment that it was "basically a paragraph by paragraph rewrite" of your material. That smacks of a claim of plagiarism and theft. I took your claims seriously and spent time out of my day comparing the texts and seriously evaluating them. Call it jumpy, laugh it up (because I wasn't) and downplay the plagiarism angle all you want... I'm done. These comments will remain on this feature. Best of luck to you. If you have any additional comments or concerns, you can e-mail me at my personal e-mail address - find that in the About Us section of the site. Thanks.
SenTTox - Tue. Jan. 24, 2012 at 08:09:14 AM
A 1st Class Education on Zombies.
I can't remember the last time I thoroughly enjoyed reading something so interesting and entertaining. Very well constructed and the effort but into this was top notch.