Considering the timing, on a whim, I entered “MLK Zombie” into my friendly, neighborhood search engine and the Internet did not disappoint me! Of the limited, but considering the topic, surprisingly large, selection this was my favorite.

Executed by artist Grayson Castro, this is “Zombie Laureates Earn Their Prize” (see it enbiggered on his Flickr Stream).

I won’t comment on the politics implied. Or the racial overtones. Or on the decisions of Nobel committee. I’ll simply thank the Internet for always being there us.

Half-Life 2 is a game full of willies-inducing moments. Some of the very best are courtesy of the fine fellow pictured, the poison zombie. They were introduced in the mother of all creep-fests, chapter 6, “We Don’t Go To Ravenholm…“. Few games, before or since, have been able to produce the sheer level of dread embodied by this sequence.

Poison zombies shuffled slowly around, preferring dark, closed spaces. Disgustingly, they played host to a small cadre of poison headcrabs that left them hunched and awkward. These passengers would, at any provocation, leap at the player en masse. The poison was non-fatal compromised the player severely, making this one of the most insidiously dangerous enemies in the game.

There were plenty of insta-deaths in Half-Life 2. Explosions, crushing traps and drive-by smearing from ant-lion soldiers. The poison zombie, however, drew out your death over many adrenaline filled seconds. Bloated and slow-moving the zombie was the personification of understatement.

Encounters were met with furious backpedaling followed quickly by the tell-tale flash that indicated that you’d been bit. A frantic few seconds that felt like minutes followed as you desperately attempted to stay alive until you could recover. Making matters worse, this was also the toughest zombie you’d face. It shrugged off carnage that would put anything else down for good all while moving toward you in inexorable slow-motion.

Here’s to you, poison zombie. Here’s to you!

[Apologies for skipping last week. Holidays, family and unexpected surgery will sometimes put a crimp in the best laid plans.]

We’ve featured a few zombies from the 1968 classic ”Night of the Living Dead“ before but this may be our favorite. She’s a little girl, and that’s just plain creepy but, more importantly, she gets rid of Harry. Harry, you see, was a royal pain in the ass.

Sure, you may find it odd that we’re celebrating the fact that a young girl was bitten, zombified and ended up eating her dad. But then you probably don’t realize how much of a pain in the ass Harry was.

I’ve written pretty extensively several times about “The Last of Us”. You might say that I kinda liked it.

The game presents an apocalyptic scenario in which an aggressive , behavior altering strain of Cordyceps fungi (which is a real thing: read about it if you’d rather not sleep tonight) wipes out most of humanity.

When first infected, people become mindless, violent, rampaging terrors that will tear apart anybody they meet. After years of infection, when the fungus has blossomed forth from the center of the victims brain (again, a real thing) and destroyed their sight they become clickers.

Clickers are ambush hunters. Hiding in corners while using their ears and echo location to jump out and make you crap your pants. Then they kill you. Horribly. With teeth. To add to the creepiness they’re almost always presented as female and still wearing the tattered remains of what was likely a very smart ensemble. They’re also amazing strong and, at least for short bursts, fast.

Clickers are the kind of critter than crawls into your brain while you’re playing the game and then decide to come out and play while you’re sleeping. So while you’re opening presents this Christmas (or going to be movies or getting Chinese food or whatever you like to do) why not spend a moment to give thanks that Cordyceps (which is still a totally real thing), so far at least, has stuck with insect and arthropods.

In our continuing celebration of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary – and yet another vigorous stretching of our definition of “zombie” – we bring you back – forward? – to the time when zombies from the core of the TARDIS made quite a nuisance of themselves.

Introduced in episode 11 of series Seven, these crackly, crumbly, cantankerous, creepy cryptids were said to be physical shadows of a rather nasty possible future for our heroes; one that saw them simultaneously liquefied and burned to a crisp (and sometimes, as pictured, melted together). These unfortunate ghosts snuck in through a leak in space-time to moan, shamble, be generally unpleasant and get handsy with our heroes.

Luckily, as is often the case when you have a time machine around, a clever way was found to not only get rid of the unwelcome guests but to also ensure that anybody that had previously been turned to critter kibble was just fine, now. Or then. Or later. Or whatever. Time travel is hard.

As being reported by bastions of journalistic integrity such as The Huffington Post, LiveLeak.com and The Daily Mail a former city hall worker in Sao Paulo, Brazil was brutally attacked, beaten unconscious and left for dead in the empty grave of a local cemetery. The assailants hurriedly covered the man with a loose layer of dirt allowing him to later break partially free. Because this man’s horrific, life-altering tragedy is vaguely reminiscent of zombies the media, and MoreBrains.com, are going to treat it like a meaningless parlor trick done solely for our momentary amusement.

The man apparently startled a woman paying her respects nearby. She claimed, “I was terrified to see a man, who I thought was dead, trying to get out of the grave.” She continued, “He had his head and hands out and was moving his arms around trying to get out.” Naturally the woman rushed to him and attempted to provide what aid she could to her clearly distressed fellow human. She was immediately grabbed by the living corpse in a close-up, low-angled,crop-shot accompanied by trilling violins and bitten violently. This would begin a chain reaction that would change the world forever.

Just kidding! She ran away screaming. Then later called police who – fun fact! – ignored her thinking she was pranking them. She ended up having to return to the cemetery office to beg them to investigate and they, eventually, where able to get emergency services to respond and rescue the victim. He is now recovering in a local hospital where, to add insult to injury, a hospital source describes his condition as “coming back to life”.

In recognition of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary – and a continual loosening of our personal definition of “zombie” – we’re celebrating a horde of murderous, barely sentient walking sacks of exotic disease.

In the first episode of series two, “New Earth“, The Doctor and Rose  explore the replacement Earth in the M87 galaxy. There, via his psychic paper, The Doctor is summoned to a hospital run by a religious order of cat-nuns who can, it seems, cure any ailment. Rose falls victim to a psychograft while The Doctor determines that artificial humans are being grown and forcibly stricken with horrible diseases to provide cures for other patients. These infected are released and begin to infect others in a familiar scenario.

If you didn’t actually understand much of that, we’re sorry to point this out, but: you’re not very cool. You should be watching Doctor Who. You should start now.

Along with his good friends Robot Santa and Kwanzaa-bot the Chanukah Zombie is the (non) living embodiment of his particular holiday season. There’s not much known about this reclusive bringer of… whatever gets brung on Chanukah.  (As atheists we’re pretty unclear on most of this stuff, honestly… but we did hear there’s lots of food. We can get behind that.) The ever-helpful Futurama Infosphere does have some interesting tidbits, however:

• He held a luau at the B’nai B’rith on Xmas Eve 3002. He invited Robot Santa and Kwanzaa-bot.
• In 3007 he teamed up, again, with Robot Santa and Kwanzaa-bot to recover the Earth from the evil (well, more annoying, really) alien Scammers.
• He was reported to have been wanted by the police for an unspecified reason.
• Unlike his sleigh-bound friends, he travels in a Tie-Fighter tricked out with Stars of David and a giant Menorah.
• He can, for some reason, turn his eyes red.

When you begin to either reverently celebrate or utterly ignore Chanukah this year, please give a thought to the hardworking, and slightly deranged, Chanukah Zombie.

Fido [Our Review] is an under-appreciated classic. Not only was it excellently realized satire but it also gave us a ring of moppets signing, “In the brain and not the chest. Head shots are the very best!” in the school yard. In the film, mega-conglomerate ZomCon has tamed zombies for use as household servants via special (and very expensive) collars.

(The collars are, or course, foolproof… except when they’re not.  In those situations please refer to the moppets.)

Anyway, there’s Tammy!  Tammy (Sonja Bennett) is the, um… “servant” zombie of neighborhood oddball Mr. Theopolis (Tim Blake Nelson).  Oh Tammy! Your cloudy eyes, your bloodless lips, your rotten teeth and sloughing skin.  You’re the kind of former girl that makes death worth… not living for!

Zombies are terrifying because they represent our fears of losing our humanity.  This fear is intensified by the circumstances by which it comes to pass: the smallest scratch or bite can literally rip us away from ourselves forever.

Horrifying zombies like Gary Busey serve to remind us that even the small things in life can change us in profound ways, that we must hold ourselves and our relationships close and —

Wait, what?  What do you mean, “He’s not a zombie”?  Of course he is!  Look at him for Christ sake!  How could something like that be alive?  Didn’t he once say that five parts of his brain contain alien power?  I admit that’s pretty eloquent for a zombie, but that’s definitely not human either.

Are you sure?  Seriously?

Well, then… never mind, I guess.