Heeb

Since it’s Halloween, do yourself a favor and listen to Max Brooks. He not only managed to escape the spooky shadow of his father, Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, but as the author of  The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, he is the foremost expert on surviving a zombie outbreak. His latest graphic novel, The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, gruesomely illustrates the most famous zombie outbreaks throughout history. Yeah, there’s awesome, bloody, flesh-ripping artwork, but it’s also a critical study on "how other eras and cultures have dealt with–and survived–the ancient viral plague." So you better pay attention. Your own survival may depend on it.

Heeb recently sat down with the "Studs Terkel of zombie journalism" to talk about zombies and apocalypses and other fun stuff.

On what turned him on to zombies:

I saw an Italian zombie film when I was about twelve or thirteen: Night of the Zombies. Basically, it mixed zombie footage with real cannibal footage shot in New Guinea. So, yeah, you could say that when the cement dried that was a pretty deep footprint. 

On how he got started:

When people go to movies, there’s always some nerd-bag in the group who just won’t let them enjoy the movies because they have to point out the inconsistencies or the destruction of the suspension of disbelief. Basically, he’s got to try and make everything realistic and he’s the last guy you want to hang with—well, that’s me. So I thought, Well what if zombies were real? What would you really do? How would you really fight them? Forget what you see in the movies.

On today’s zombie renaissance:

I think we’re living in very scary times right now. The first time zombie movies were popular it was the 1970’s. And the ’70s were a time of unprecedented social anxiety on a massive global scale. You had unpopular wars, you had terrorism, you had environmental degradation, you had economic collapse, and you really had a time when the average citizen of the western world literally did not know what was going to happen every morning… Well, we’re reliving those times. We had a nice couple of decades of relative quiet, and now the time of browning our shorts is back with a vengeance. And we have terrorism, we have war, we have horrible new diseases, plagues of pig flu and bird flu – whatever. We have environmental catastrophe in which the whole planet may drown. We have economic crisis and I’m not just talking about this recession. We’re talking about our whole global economy is being spent on oil and the oil is running out. I mean the average citizen doesn’t know what’s going to happen every time they log on AOL. It’s terrifying! People need a place where they can sort of look at the apocalypse. They need a vessel to store their anxieties…A zombie movie is really an apocalyptic movie, but it’s safe because zombies aren’t real… I mean, if I wrote a book about the planet drowning under the weight of its own carbon footprint, that wouldn’t be so fun.

On researching his books:

I’m a historian by trade, if you want to call it. That’s what I majored in in college and I’ve always been interested in history. My college professors would be really proud of me, that I finally did my homework. People ask me if I watched a lot of zombie movies and the truth is no. I didn’t do any zombie research. All of the other research was real…lots and lots of books and lots of interviews with real people with real jobs and a little bit of personal experience…I mean, I can tell you first hand that the M16 is a piece of crap rifle.

On the upcoming movie adaptation of World War Z:

I am not part of that process and it’s just the way I like it. I keep as far away from it as possible…I don’t play well with others. Hollywood is a very collaborative field and I’m not a collaborative guy. I wouldn’t want me. I wouldn’t have hired me…I just want to buy the ticket and go see the movie and be like "Wow, this movie has the same title as my book!"

On Recorded Attacks, his first graphic novel:

I’ve always loved graphic novels. I think they’re an amazing form of expression.  I wish I could draw, but I cant.  So the next best thing is to write the script and have somebody more talented draw it.

That was surprisingly good…  He lives in Brazil.  I picture him living in a tree in the Amazon somewhere, drawing away.  I’ve never met the man and I’ve actually never spoken to him directly.  I literally write the script, e-mail it to Avatar Comics, which then emails it to Brazil.  And then, Ibraim draws some pictures and emails it back to me, which I have my notes on… When you write a novel, you only have to put in as much information as you need, as is important, but when you’re writing a script for a comic book — unless you want the artist to go hog wild, which I don’t — you have to describe everything. The description is endless and, for a control freak like me, I got to get it right. 

On his next project:

It’s not zombie. I’m doing a mini-series for G.I Joe, the comic books of G.I. Joe. It’s so adult that Hasbro wouldn’t let me use my original statement for the press release.  The original statement was, “Trust me, this time people are gonna die.”

Interview by Cody Oz  

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