So what is happening over at the Zed Word? Straight from the zombie’s mouth:

* Reviews of tasty flicks Die-ner (Get It?), Gore-Met, and Flesheater
* Tips for hosting the perfect Zombie Dinner Party
* A meaty interview with Kings of the Dead author Tony Faville
* Contest: Win an official Eat Me! apron
* Much more!

Sounds pretty fun. More to come, I’m sure :)

The Zed Word (zedwordblog.com <- new window)

To celebrate George’s birthday, Fearnet is planning a lot of zombie related content. From the article:

Video interviews with Romero and cast members of his Dead films.

Full-length, free streaming movies featuring the consequences of zombie-like outbreaks, including Mulberry Street, the aptly titled J-horror film Infection and David Cronenberg’s classic Shivers.

Zombie American, a short starring The Hangover’s Ed Helms.

A Jobs of the Damned video lesson from our old friend actor Doug Jones on how to move like a zombie.

A review of Kevin Hamedani’s post-9-11 political horror-comedy Zombies of Mass Destruction, part of this year’s After Dark Horrorfest.

Original zombie haikus penned by visitors to our site.

And since no birthday is complete without cake, FEARnet will serve up a gallery of the best zombie-themed birthday cakes from around the web. To top things off, we’ll “tweet like a zombie,” retweeting zombie-related comments from horror fans and notables all day long.

Sounds like it’s a good day to tweeting the undead, so if you haven’t started a twitter account, now is a good time. You can reach Fearnet’s twitter account right over here.

Get Ready to Tweet Like a Zombie (fearnet.com <- new window)

For those of you who just want to write and forget about the rest, you will be happy to know that zombie news site, Zombiephiles.com is going user generated. All you need to do is create an account, then start writing some articles. Once submitted, the site owner will act as an editor by fixing typos and other low hanging fruit, then publish it on his site.

Here’s a few more details:

Starting today, all registered users for Zombiephiles.com will be granted “contributor” status on our WordPress installation, meaning that you can create and edit your own posts. They’ll still require an administrator (this Zombiephile) to actually publish them (and probably do some spell-checking here and there), but you’ll be able to write articles right from the Zombiephiles.com site.

Not sure you have the chops? Man up! (or Woman up! We don’t discriminate.) If you’re not savvy with images, HTML or formatting – don’t worry about it! We keep a half-zombified HTML guy in the basement to worry about that sort of thing. All we need from you is your ideas and opinions about all things zombie!

Sounds like a good opportunity for those of you who are interested in writing for a zombie blog, but not wanting to make the full time commitment as of yet. Just a note from a freelance writer, before you submit your work to any site, make sure you understand the terms. Some sites such as Triggerstreet.com (Kevin Spacey’s production company) actually claim ownership of anything you submit to them. I would assume Zombiephiles to have a pretty liberal policy, but it’s always better to look down before you jump.

The Zombiephiles Want YOU! And Your Brains. (zombiephiles.com <- new window)

There’s also a pretty active forum tied in nicely with the rest of the site. A lot of websites (like my own) are a collection of different open source utilities that talk the same language in different dialects which makes it incredibly challenging to have a unified experience. For example, you might sign up to talk on the forums, but you also have to create a new account to talk on the blog. The Zombies Workshop just ties everything together in a nice seamless experience.

The other thing I like about the site is the maturity of the people. Stepping into some zombie forums is like regressing to elementary school level discussion. Maybe it’s something about the content, or maybe it’s just out of control fanboyism, but some zombie forums makes me want to stick my head in a washing machine. Thankfully, these appear to be the good. (All check out www.zombie-nation.net or head on over to my own fledgling forums)

In any case, this looks like a good site to investigate. Check it out.

Zombies Workshop (zombies.ws <- new window)

This is a website for the zombie craft lover. She sells some standard things like mousepads and coffee cups, but the fun really begins once you dive into her Etsy shop. There’s a brain pendent with a nice bite taken out of it. Or how about the Eye-Scream cone pendent which is a detached eyeball atop a bloody cone.

Here’s the formal description from the site:

This site is a collection of the Zombie arts and crafts I have made throughout the years, many for sale. Sure, there are plenty of items for sale in my Etsy and Zazzle stores that are not Zombie related, but they would be great gifts for the Zombie in your life.

Check it out. There’s some great stuff.

Little Shop of Zombies (littleshopofzombies.com <- new window)

It was also during this movie that we get the characterization of yet another zombie character known as Big Daddy, who is like Bub 2.0 where he tries to act like a car station mechanic but regular people still see him as a dead person. He doesn’t understand this and here is where we encounter our major plot point: the zombies see us as the invading disease because they think they are normal, so Big Daddy decides to revolt against the living. He is vastly intelligent compared to most zombies and he understands that the ‘sky flowers’ are just distractions so people can raid the stores and kill ‘his people.’ He is a revolutionary, he teaches the zombies to use their weapons like meat cleavers, batons, guns and their appetite to revolt against the living and take back their land.

This is some good stuff. It makes for a great read especially in light of the soon to be released Survival of the Dead.

Romero and the Evolution of Zombies (buyzombie.com <- new window)

Z-Prepared itself looks to be a survival theme zombie site. The overall design is professional and features all sorts of different products that – er – help you survive. Think of an REI blog with a zombie theme. Here’s the description:

Zprepared is a group of like-minded individuals who feel that it’s hard enough to survive the endless hordes of the walking dead, so people should have the option to do so with the coolest gear available. We find all kinds of gear that will not only help you survive, but to survive in style. Make the zombie apocalypse more comfortable and stylish…ZPrepared.

How the ZGirls play into the overall site is yet to be seen, but it looks like we will be finding out sooner rather than later.

ZGirls (zprepared.com <- new window)

This month’s giveaway is the 2010 Calender of Zombie Pinups. This is a pretty clever calender. Each month shows a different model replicating a pose from the fifties, except unlike her fifties counterpart, the model has been thoroughly zombiefied. Exposed mid-riffs reveal large open wounds. Beautiful glossed cheeks are chewed off. Bare arms are riddled with bite marks. In short, it’s a pretty awesome zombiefest.

How do you win? Check it out:

To enter for your chance to win, email me a picture to zombiesandtoys@gmail.com. But not any picture, there are criteria… email me your zombie tattoos, a before and after pic of yourself zombified, your favorite zombie pin-up not featured in the calendar, or even just a classic photo you think should receive the zombie treatment next year. Write “pinup” in the subject and don’t forget to include your name and address.

Break out the camera, and of course … the brrrraaaaaaaaiiiiiinnnnsssssssssss

My Zombie Pin-Up Calender (zombiesandtoys.blogspot.com <- new window)

So what tools might these be? Rope? Maybe a sleeping bag with mosquito repellent? Nope. Knives. More like machetes really.

So who are these guys. From the FAQ:

We are swordsmen and metalsmiths who create blades, and soon, other gear, that will increase your odds of surviving a zombie apocalypse. Beyond zombies, there’s no shortage of speculation these days that our culture lives just a good shock or two away from some serious destabilization. Pandemic, natural disaster, economic collapse, political upheaval—all have the potential to turn our world on its head and put you in a situation where your survival is in your hands. And should that happen, we’d rather our hands be holding something other than our dicks. We operate under the premise that if you’re prepared for zombies, you’re prepared for anything.

Needless to say, they make some kick ass blades. Check it out.

Zombie Tools (zombietools.net <- new window)

But as we know, as time change so does one’s passions. Some time before the release of Diary of the Dead, site owner Dead Kev appears to have found other interests, leaving the main site of All Things Zombie a snapshot of zombie culture in 2007. Perusing the main site, you’ll find links to articles that no longer exists. You’ll discover previews for zombie games that have long been canceled. You’ll find discussions for upcoming movies that have been long released. In a word, derelict.

But yet, it gets worse. Users are noticing the lack of new faces. Moderators are getting slammed for being too heavy handed with merges and deletes. Normal site events have all but disappeared, and now the specter of death hangs over the forum. It has become clear to the community that one day they will return to their beloved site and find an empty website.

And where is Dead Kev? He was last seen in April, fixing a server outage but not a word from him since. Emails goes unanswered. Private messages are unopened. In a word, he’s done. The only thing that matters is the ad revenue. Once that dries up, so will the site.

Still there are other places like zombie-nation.net (although they have to get their main site in order as well) as well as a plethora of horror related web sites to visit as well. It’s just a shame that a work horse like ATZ should die a slow painful death. In it’s heyday, it was a force of sorts. Now, it is the very thing that it loves … a walking corpse that wanders the wastes of the internet.

Fare thee well, All Things Zombie. We hardly knew thee.

* Powerful slingshots, easy to use and lethal to aliens
* A selection of live ammo, and we mean LIVE — raccoons and skunks — in addition to assorted bombs and exploding projectiles
* A global view of who’s winning- the zombies or the resistance fighters
* A system for challenging your comrades to see who is most skilled
* An original soundtrack, surprising sounds and blood-curdling screams

You can enter the promotion over at Zombies and Toys to win the game, or if you are lazy like me, fork over the ninety nine cents to get your own copy. In either case … happy hunting.

Attack of the Zombie Bikini Babes from Outer Space (zombiesandtoys.blogspot.com <- new window)

This is a fun, albeit, gruesome site where you can see all your favorite cartoon characters get eaten alive. Check out it. Just leave your innocence at the door.

Blog of the Living Dead (zombimo.blogspot.com <- new window)

Zombie Art Collection (pics24h.com <- new window)

Zombie Daily (zombiedaily.com <- new window)

the Zed Word (zedwordblog.blogspot.com <- new window)