Zombie hordes in the Northwest

A friend, who recently moved from Jersey to the Seattle area, expressed an interest in/weakness for zombie literature.

"World War Z is a must-read!" he said, and then got treated to a barrage of zombie-related Northwest intel. News of:

--zombie burlesque, wet slime (is there any other kind?) T-shirt contests, and zombie walks.

--Plants vs. Zombies, the game out for Mac and PC today from Seattle's PopCap Games with its infectious music video (also in Japanese! Learn to say, "Zombie" in Nihon).

--ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, the movie, and the upcoming screening and discussion with Seattle filmmakers John Sinno and Kevin Hamedani at the next Exposed: Inside Film feature 7 p.m., Tues., May 19 at the Science Fiction Museum. See the earlier post: Bloody scary: zombies and Cthulu.

--Crypticon, the horror convention promising monster mayhem, June 5-7 at Seattle Center. Surely, there will be zombies.

--The Fremont Outdoor Cinema Best of Zombie Movies night with Shaun of the Dead (and possibly White Zombie), 6 p.m., July 3, 3400 Phinney Avenue North. Twitterati follow @outdoormovies. There will definitely be zombies!

--NightZero, a Seattle-based zombie-themed, post-viral outbreak apocalypse, Web comic. Read the production team's blog, Journal Zero. And just to tie all this together: Night Zero will be at Crypticon June 7 and shooting a zombie short at zombie movie night July 3 (the short will be aired at Twisted Flick Night, Army of Darkness, Sat., July 18).

"Wow!" my new to the Northwest friend said, "I feel like I've arrived in zombie-mecca-heaven-ultra-fantastic-land!"

Or maybe he just gave me a dazed, weirded-out, whatever look. Either way, the Northwest's got lots of zombies! Probably because we've got lots of brains and them's good eatin'.

Also worth discussing, Seth Grahame-Smith's infestation of Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the eternal question: Zombie sharks, redundant or extra scary?