(today's zomby) AND DEADMAU5!

Two kinds of dead mice today. First, the cartoon kind:

And then the musical kind:



Personally, this song seems pretty unremarkable to me, but it's racked up 22 million hits on YouTube. So listen for yourself and decide.

(today's zomby) AND, TIME PERMITTING, THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI

In the last few episodes of the now-on-hiatus Mail Order Zombie podcast, I courted a bit of controversy by discussing the longstanding rivalry between zombies and ghosts. Well, the following cartoon implies that the feud extends all the way to the animal kingdom...

But speaking of ghost dogs, here's the trailer for a Forrest Whitaker movie I haven't seen. FUN FACT: After watching this trailer, you will be a fully-qualified samurai!



P.S. I was so charmed by the image of the floating, glowing dog that I am now going to present it in quadruplicate.

And a Ziggy/Zomby-free alternate version:

SPECIAL REQUEST TO THE ROBOTS WHO COLOR "ZIGGY": Please consider dropping such hideous shades as "burnt umber" and "guacamole" from your color palate. There is no reason for this cartoon to look like a 1970s kitchen.

Y is for Yucky (Day 24)

Monsters are yucky.

Okay, okay... so I misspelled "are." I was obviously in a state of artistic frenzy, judging by the bravura depiction of the horror world's own Rat Pack here. We have Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and... uh, The Ghost. Notice the bulbous nose and simpleton expression I've given to both Drac and his ghostly comrade. Frankie appears pretty blissed-out as well. Only the Mummy remains enigmatic, a mystery behind his shapeless blob of bandages. Keep in mind, this was all before The Monster Squad. For all I know, they ripped me off. It can happen! Did you see Big Fat Liar with Frankie Muniz and Paul Giamatti? No? Well, you should. It's actually kind of funny. Better than you'd think.

H is for Halloween (Day 8)

Halloween is a scary time.

Rather a predictable choice for the letter H, I realize, but there is much to discuss even here. Note that even after 7 previous entries, I still had not learned to allow myself sufficient space to write each dictionary entry in the upper right hand corner. Also, for most kids, Halloween is a time of eating candy and having fun. But not for young Joe. No sirree. Even then, I knew Halloween was all about unrelenting terror. On October 31st, the ghosts of those who once lived are going to hunt you down and possibly kill or eat you. Be prepared!

G is for Ghost (Day 7)

I saw a scary ghost.

"Phoning it in" is such an integral part of the creative process that not even children are immune. Witness this page of My Halloween Dictionary. I vaguely remember that this booklet was created over a period of several school days, and we had an hour per day to work on it. After comparatively elaborate pages for E and F, I must have felt I was behind schedule when I got to G -- hence a nondescript white character against a blank white background. Voila! Another page completed! I do like that Mr. Ghost feels compelled to say "boo" (after all, that's what ghosts say, right?) even when no one else is around.