five with frights:- steve mockus
-
STEVE MOCKUS authored a book called 'How To Speak
Zombie', I thought it was perfect for all you out there who want to blend in
when the zombie hoards take over...
-
-
-
-
MR. FRIGHTS: Who did the voices for the zombie?-
STEVE MOCKUS: When we were first discussing the book, I did them all just to demonstrate, but for the real thing we went with professional voice talent. His name is J. S. Gilbert. He lives in San Francisco and has previously done zombie sounds for video games, so he knew what he was doing and he brought his own zombified style to it. I love the voices. -
MR. FRIGHTS: Did you have to hire a zombie interpreter or are you fluent in their language?
-
STEVE MOCKUS: I wouldn’t say that I’m fluent. Zombie is one of those languages that you can probably only consider yourself a lifelong learner of; so long as you’re alive, you’re learning. Ironically, though, as soon as you’re bitten and turn, you become fluent.
Technically, it’s a dialect---an undead variation on whatever language the former-human spoke before zombification. In the case of my book, I chose to focus on Zombie-English, since I’m a native English-speaker. Zombie-Vietnamese would be pretty different, and impossible for me because I don’t have the background in Vietnamese (I know how to say “please” and “thank you” from a trip I took years ago, but zombies aren’t using those words much.)
There are some hand and arm gestures, lurching and such, that form a sort of zombie Esperanto and are common among all languages. With zombies everywhere, humans really have no choice other than to learn by immersion. I think that’s supposed to be how we learn languages best, but again, not that we have any choice… -
MR. FRIGHTS: What got you into doing horror for kids?
-
STEVE MOCKUS: The illustrations for the book are really great---done by Travis Millard; they have a kind of vintage Mad Magazine quality that I really like. But it’s funny, we didn’t necessarily aim it at kids. The Scholastic Book Club liked the book and wanted to make it available to their club, but that meant that we needed to change one of the scenarios from “At the Bar” to “At the Dance Party,” because and booze and kids, eh, not so much. What that means though is there’s a whole different scenario out there in the first printing that isn’t in the later printings. I’m not sure anyone but me cares, but it’s true. Collect them both!
I was really excited that Scholastic liked it. I have great memories of getting their little paper circulars of books in school and going to the book fairs and getting the books and just diving into them. I think it set me up to love reading as much as I do now, and I’m really happy that my book could be one of those that kids are bringing home and having fun with. -
MR. FRIGHTS: Did you have to go all Dr. Jane Goodall to get this insight into zombie culture? If so, how did you keep them from eating your brains?
-
STEVE MOCKUS:
The point of the guide is definitely to blend in and avoid being eaten,
while still doing the things you need or want to do (go to the mall, or the
gym; going to work; ordering a cup of coffee). At work, for instance, if you
demonstrate that you meet or exceed their goals, you’ll fit right in. If
they want brains, you want more brains.
-
MR. FRIGHTS: What’s next for Steve Mockus?
-
STEVE MOCKUS: Well, I’m actually a featured speaker at
ZomBcon in Seattle this Halloween weekend. My talk is on Saturday, but the whole thing looks like a lot of fun, including a zombie prom and talks by Max Brooks and George Romero the Friday before. If you’re in the area, come by and say hi!
Hit the Grab Bag Questions below to go on with the interview...
GRAB BAG QUESTIONS
-
MR. FRIGHTS: With your knowledge of zombie culture maybe you can settle this for us... are zombies fast or slow?
-
STEVE MOCKUS: Neither as fast as you’re worried about, nor quite as slow as you think.
-
MR. FRIGHTS: Do you subscribe to zombie infection by mysterious meteor from space or secret government scientific accident?
-
STEVE MOCKUS: If it comes from space, I think it’s more likely to be along the lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the Philip Kaufman version) or The Thing (John Carpenter version). With the zombies, I feel like Danny Boyle probably got it right, unfortunately. Or it’ll be like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and you’d never really know … it’d just be happening, which is actually scarier in a way. Other than 28 Days Later, I’ve always found the “why” in zombie movies and fiction to be kind of disappointing, to be honest.