106-474: A zombie ( Haitian French : zombi ; Haitian Creole : zonbi ; Kikongo : zumbi ) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse . In modern popular culture, zombies are most commonly found in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore , in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou . Modern media depictions of
212-438: A Lafferty pastiche he had written. Lafferty sent Gaiman an encouraging and informative letter back, along with literary advice. Gaiman has named Roger Zelazny as the author who influenced him the most. Gaiman claims that other authors such as Samuel R. Delany and Angela Carter "furnished the inside of my mind and set me to writing". Gaiman takes inspiration from the folk tales tradition, citing Otta F Swire 's book on
318-509: A Zombie (1943) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). Frankenstein by Mary Shelley , while not a zombie novel per se , foreshadows many 20th century ideas about zombies in that the resurrection of the dead is portrayed as a scientific process rather than a mystical one and that the resurrected dead are degraded and more violent than their living selves. Frankenstein , published in 1818, has its roots in European folklore, whose tales of
424-728: A biography of the band Duran Duran , and co-edited Ghastly Beyond Belief , a book of quotations, with Kim Newman . Although Gaiman thought he had done a terrible job, the book's first edition sold out very quickly. When he went to relinquish his rights to the book, he discovered the publisher had gone bankrupt. After this, he was offered a job by Penthouse . He refused the offer. He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including Knave . During this, he sometimes wrote under pseudonyms, including Gerry Musgrave, Richard Grey, and "a couple of house names". Gaiman has said he ended his journalism career in 1987 because British newspapers regularly publish untruths as fact. In
530-721: A direct sequel to American Gods but he has revisited the characters. A glimpse at Shadow's travels in Europe is found in a short story which finds him in Scotland, applying the same concepts developed in American Gods to the story of Beowulf . The 2005 novel Anansi Boys deals with Anansi ('Mr. Nancy'), tracing the relationship of his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unassuming bookkeeper, as they explore their common heritage. It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list . In 2002, Gaiman entered
636-494: A four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he is destined to be the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber . Gaiman's adaptation of Sweeney Todd , illustrated by Michael Zulli for Stephen R. Bissette 's publication Taboo ,
742-473: A girl and his love for human flesh, and Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) (released as Cemetery Man in the U.S.). In 1980s Hong Kong cinema , the Chinese jiangshi , a zombie-like creature dating back to Qing dynasty era jiangshi fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, were featured in a wave of jiangshi films , popularised by Mr. Vampire (1985). Hong Kong jiangshi films were popular in
848-449: A half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like – I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun." Gaiman wrote two series for Marvel Comics . Marvel 1602 was an eight-issue limited series published from November 2003 to June 2004 with art by Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove . The Eternals was a seven-issue limited series drawn by John Romita Jr. , which
954-495: A kid. I'd say, 'I'm a Jewish Scientologist. ' " Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his family's religion. About his personal views, Gaiman has stated, "I think we can say that God exists in the DC Universe. I would not stand up and beat the drum for the existence of God in this universe. I don't know, I think there's probably a 50/50 chance. It doesn't really matter to me." Gaiman
1060-470: A modest success, nearly outstripping Romero's Day of the Dead for box office returns. After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Notable entries include director Peter Jackson 's ultra-gory film Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the U.S.), Bob Balaban 's comic 1993 film My Boyfriend's Back , where a self-aware high-school boy returns to profess his love for
1166-506: A powerful and frequently fatal neurotoxin found in the flesh of the pufferfish (family Tetraodontidae). The second powder consists of deliriant drugs such as datura . Together these powders were said to induce a deathlike state, in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse , who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. The most ethically questioned and least scientifically explored ingredient of
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#17327719631761272-557: A series of graphic novel adaptations based on his short stories "Troll Bridge", "Chivalry", and "Snow, Glass, Apples", Gaiman and the Terry Pratchett estate chose Doran to adapt Good Omens into graphic novel form, and to self publish the work via the Pratchett estate's Dunmanifestin label. It was financed on Kickstarter where it became a record-setter in less than a week as the top fan-supported and top-earning comics project in
1378-425: A slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt . English professor Amy Wilentz has written that the modern concept of Zombies was strongly influenced by Haitian slavery . Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from committing suicide. While most scholars have associated
1484-426: A small child. It is said that the spell can be broken by a powerful enough sangoma . It is also believed in some areas of South Africa that witches can zombify a person by killing and possessing the victim's body to force it into slave labor. After rail lines were built to transport migrant workers, stories emerged about "witch trains". These trains appeared ordinary, but were staffed by zombified workers controlled by
1590-406: A standard novel and in an illustrated text edition. This novel was highly influenced by Victorian fairytales and culture. American Gods became one of Gaiman's best-selling and multi-award-winning novels upon its release in 2001. A special 10th Anniversary edition was released, with the "author's preferred text" 12,000 words longer than the original mass-market editions. Gaiman has not written
1696-718: A state of catatonia . Roland Littlewood , professor of anthropology and psychiatry, published a study supporting a social explanation of the zombie phenomenon in the medical journal The Lancet in 1997. The social explanation sees observed cases of people identified as zombies as a culture-bound syndrome , with a particular cultural form of adoption practiced in Haiti that unites the homeless and mentally ill with grieving families who see them as their "returned" lost loved ones, as Littlewood summarizes his findings in an article in Times Higher Education : I came to
1802-421: A state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years. Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis — particularly of the muscles of the diaphragm — unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to psychologist Terence Hines , the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of
1908-462: A translation of the Japanese script. After his disappointment with the production limitations of Neverwhere , Gaiman asked his agent to pull him out of an (unnamed) UK television series that was to begin production immediately afterwards. "I didn't want to do it unless I had more control than you get as a writer: in fantasy, the tone of voice, the look and feel, the way something is shot and edited
2014-515: A vampire story, had a great impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero . The novel and its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth , which concern a lone human survivor waging war against a world of vampires, would by Romero's own admission greatly influence his 1968 low-budget film Night of the Living Dead , a work that was more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it. The monsters in
2120-529: A wave of low-budget Asian zombie films such as the zombie comedy Bio Zombie (1998) and action film Versus (2000), and then a new wave of popular Western zombie films in the early 2000s, the Resident Evil and House of the Dead films, the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake , and the British zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004). The " zombie apocalypse " concept, in which the civilized world
2226-474: A witch. The trains would abduct a person boarding at night, and the person would then either be zombified or beaten and thrown from the train a distance away from the original location. Several decades after Hurston's work, Wade Davis , a Harvard ethnobotanist , presented a pharmacological case for zombies in a 1983 article in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology , and later in two popular books: The Serpent and
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#17327719631762332-444: A zombie astral to enhance his spiritual power. A zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a bokor and sold to a client to bring luck, healing, or business success. It is believed that God eventually will reclaim the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity. The two types of zombie reflect soul dualism , a belief of Bakongo religion and Haitian voodoo . Each type of legendary zombie
2438-488: A zombie, since they "knew" that they were dead and had no other role to play in the Haitian society. Societal reinforcement of the belief was hypothesized by Davis to confirm for the zombie individual the zombie state, and such individuals were known to hang around in graveyards, exhibiting attitudes of low affect . Davis's claim has been criticized, particularly the suggestion that Haitian witch doctors can keep "zombies" in
2544-480: Is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft . The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi", actually referring to the Afro-Brazilian rebel leader named Zumbi and the etymology of his name in "nzambi". The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as Central African and compares it to
2650-651: Is brought low by a global zombie infestation, has since become a staple of modern zombie media, seen in such media as The Walking Dead franchise . The late 2000s and 2010s saw the humanization and romanticization of the zombie archetype , with the zombies increasingly portrayed as friends and love interests for humans. Notable examples of the latter include movies Warm Bodies and Zombies , novels American Gods by Neil Gaiman , Generation Dead by Daniel Waters, and Bone Song by John Meaney , animated movie Corpse Bride , TV series iZombie and Santa Clarita Diet , manga series Sankarea: Undying Love , and
2756-488: Is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Vodou in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony." A Central African origin for the Haitian zombie has been postulated based on two etymologies in the Kongo language , nzambi ("god") and zumbi ("fetish"). This root helps form the names of several deities, including
2862-409: Is provided for the private schools and universities. Even in this group however, a native accent of the language usually occurs in everyone's speech. Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ m ən / ; born Neil Richard Gaiman on 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include
2968-734: Is the variety of French spoken in Haiti . Haitian French is close to standard French. It should be distinguished from Haitian Creole , which is not mutually intelligible with French. The phoneme consonant / ʁ / is pronounced [ ɣ ], but it is often silent in the syllable coda when occurring before a consonant or prosodic break ( faire is pronounced [ f ɛ ː]). The nasal vowels are not pronounced as in Metropolitan French : / ɑ̃ / → [ ã ], / ɛ̃ / → [ ɛ̃ ], / ɔ̃ / → [ õ ], and / œ̃ / → [ œ̃ ]. The typical vowel shifts make it sound very much like other regional accents of
3074-542: Is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit). The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa (" Guinea "), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever
3180-486: Is vital, and I wanted to be in charge of that." He co-wrote the script for Robert Zemeckis 's Beowulf with Roger Avary , a collaboration that has proved productive for both writers. Gaiman has expressed interest in collaborating on a film adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh . He was the only person other than J. Michael Straczynski to write a Babylon 5 script in the series' last three seasons, contributing to
3286-476: The Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film. "I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them", complained Ebert, "They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else." According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately: The kids in the audience were stunned. There
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3392-542: The Epic of Gilgamesh . One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was The Magic Island (1929) by W. B. Seabrook . This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. Time commented that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech". Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein drawing on European folklore of
3498-936: The Church of Scientology was the cause of the seven-year-old Gaiman being forced to withdraw from Fonthill School and return to the school which he had previously attended. He lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965 to 1980 and again from 1984 to 1987. He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology and living in a house in East Grinstead that was owned by his father. The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child. Gaiman has mentioned several writers who have influenced his work, including Mary Shelley , Rudyard Kipling , Edgar Allan Poe , Michael Moorcock , Dave Sim , Alan Moore , Steve Ditko , Will Eisner , Ursula K. Le Guin , Harlan Ellison , John Crowley , Lord Dunsany , G. K. Chesterton and Gene Wolfe . A lifetime fan of
3604-680: The English-speaking Caribbean , considered to be of the same etymology; in the French West Indies also, local "zombies" are recognized, but these are of a more general spirit nature. The idea of physical zombie-like creatures is present in some South African cultures, where they are called xidachane in Sotho / Tsonga and maduxwane in Venda . In some communities, it is believed that a dead person can be zombified by
3710-584: The French spoken in Paris is very influential, so much so that a growing number of Haitians would rather speak it as precisely as possible and pursue this by listening to Radio France Internationale and matching the somewhat conservative style of speech heard on that station. In the educated groups, French is spoken more closely to the Parisian accent. It is within this group that a major portion of enrollment
3816-603: The French Caribbean and the Francophone countries of Africa . The perceivable difference between Haitian French and the French spoken in Paris lies in the Haitian speaker's intonation, where a subtle creole -based tone carrying the French on top is found. Importantly, these differences are not enough to create a misunderstanding between a native Parisian speaker and a speaker of Haitian French. In Haiti ,
3922-413: The Kongo words " nzambi " (god) and " zumbi " (fetish). A Kimbundu -to-Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word nzumbi as soul, while a later Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a "spirit that is supposed to wander the earth to torment the living". How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not fully clear. The film Night of
4028-501: The Monty Python comedy troupe , he owned a copy of Monty Python's Big Red Book as a teenager. During a trip to France when he was 13, Gaiman became fascinated with the visually fantastic world in the stories of Metal Hurlant , even though he could not understand the words. When he was 19 or 20 years old, he contacted his favourite science fiction writer, R. A. Lafferty , requesting advice on becoming an author and including
4134-483: The United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported "zombies" began to emerge. The first popular book covering the topic was William Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929). Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian criminal code , which was passed in 1864, asserting that it was an official recognition of zombies. This passage was later used in promotional materials for
4240-456: The 1920s and early 1930s, Lovecraft wrote several novellae that explored the undead theme. " Cool Air ", " In the Vault " and " The Outsider " all deal with the undead, but Lovecraft's " Herbert West–Reanimator " (1921) "helped define zombies in popular culture". This series of short stories featured Herbert West , a mad scientist , who attempts to revive human corpses, with mixed results. Notably,
4346-444: The 1932 film White Zombie . Also shall be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made by any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the administering of such substances, the person has been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows. In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered
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4452-615: The BBC mini-series Neverwhere was his first solo novel. The novel was released in tandem with the television series, though it presents some notable differences from the television series. Gaiman has since revised the novel twice, the first time for an American audience unfamiliar with the London Underground , the second time because he felt unsatisfied with the originals. In 1999, the first printings of his fantasy novel Stardust were released. The novel has been released both as
4558-562: The Dead (1978), including once in dialog. According to Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his creatures, and especially the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma . He eventually accepted this linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in White Zombie with Bela Lugosi . Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by
4664-528: The Dead films and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. These films also adopted an action approach to the zombie concept, which was also influenced by the Resident Evil and House of the Dead video games. Films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the 1930s. White Zombie (directed by Victor Halperin in 1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (directed by Jacques Tourneur ; 1943) were early examples. With George A. Romero 's Night of
4770-446: The Dead . The success of these two 1996 zombie games inspired a wave of Asian zombie films. From the late 1990s, zombies experienced a renaissance in low-budget Asian cinema , with a sudden spate of dissimilar entries, including Bio Zombie (1998), Wild Zero (1999), Junk (1999), Versus (2000) and Stacy (2001). Haitian French Haitian French ( French : français haïtien , Haitian Creole : fransè ayisyen )
4876-921: The End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards . The novel follows an unnamed man who returns to his hometown for a funeral and remembers events that began forty years earlier. Themes include the search for self-identity and the "disconnect between childhood and adulthood". It was later adapted into a critically acclaimed stage play at the Royal National Theatre in London. In September 2016, Neil Gaiman announced that he had been working for some years on retellings of Norse mythology . Norse Mythology
4982-554: The Far East from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Prior to the 1990s, there were not many Japanese films related to what may be considered in the West as a zombie film. Early films such as The Discarnates (1988) feature little gore and no cannibalism, but it is about the dead returning to life looking for love rather than a story of apocalyptic destruction. One of the earliest Japanese zombie films with considerable gore and violence
5088-654: The Gaiman- Roger Avary -penned Beowulf film. Neil Gaiman was featured in the History Channel documentary Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked . Several of Gaiman's original works have been optioned or greenlighted for film adaptation, most notably Stardust , which premiered in August 2007 and stars Charlie Cox , Robert De Niro , Michelle Pfeiffer , Claire Danes and Mark Strong , directed by Matthew Vaughn . A stop-motion version of Coraline
5194-467: The Haitian zombie with African cultures, a connection has also been suggested to the island's indigenous Taíno people , partly based on an early account of native shamanist practices written by Ramón Pané [ es ] , a monk of the Hieronymite religious order and companion of Christopher Columbus . The Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention during
5300-639: The Kongo creator deity Nzambi Mpungu and the Louisiana serpent deity Li Grand Zombi (a local version of the Haitian Damballa ), but it is in fact a generic word for a divine spirit. The common African conception of beings under these names is more similar to the incorporeal "zombie astral", as in the Kongo Nkisi spirits. A related, but also often incorporeal, undead being is the jumbee of
5406-412: The Living Dead (1968) made no spoken reference to its undead antagonists as "zombies", describing them instead as " ghouls " (though ghouls, which derive from Arabic folklore, are demons, not undead). Although George A. Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original scripts, in later interviews he used the term "zombie". The word "zombie" is used exclusively by Romero in his script for his sequel Dawn of
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#17327719631765512-400: The Living Dead (1968), the zombie trope began to be increasingly linked to consumerism and consumer culture. Today, zombie films are released with such regularity (at least 50 films were released in 2014 alone) that they constitute a separate subgenre of horror film. Voodoo-related zombie themes have also appeared in espionage or adventure-themed works outside the horror genre. For example,
5618-451: The Living Dead (1985)—the latter of which introduced the concept of zombies that eat brains—as well as Michael Jackson 's music video Thriller (1983), the genre waned for some years. The mid-1990s saw the introduction of Resident Evil and The House of the Dead , two break-out successes of video games featuring zombie enemies which would later go on to become highly influential and well-known. These games were initially followed by
5724-456: The Living Dead began the shift away from Haitian dark magic, though did not give scientific explanations for zombie origins. A more decisive shift towards scientific themes came with the Resident Evil video game series in the late 1990s, which gave more realistic scientific explanations for zombie origins while drawing on modern science and technology, such as biological weaponry , genetic manipulation , and parasitic symbiosis . This became
5830-591: The Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards . It was later adapted into a critically acclaimed stage play at the Royal National Theatre in London. In 2024, it was announced that a number of commercial ventures linked to him would halt production, owing to allegations of sexual assault towards women. Neil Richard Gaiman
5936-520: The Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being introduced into the bloodstream (usually through a wound). The first, French: coup de poudre ("powder strike"), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX),
6042-591: The Zombies (1966). Romero was also inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954), along with its film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth (1964). The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero 's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead . In his films, Romero "bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster". This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies . Roger Ebert of
6148-421: The act of necromancy of a bokor , a sorcerer or witch. The bokor is opposed by the houngan (priest) and the mambo (priestess) of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of the bokor as a personal slave, having no will of its own. The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie astral ", which is a part of the human soul . A bokor can capture
6254-477: The case of a woman who appeared in a village. A family claimed that she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. The woman was examined by a doctor; X-rays indicated that she did not have a leg fracture that Felix-Mentor was known to have had. Hurston pursued rumors that affected persons were given a powerful psychoactive drug , but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote: "What
6360-566: The comic book series The Sandman and the novels Good Omens , Stardust , Anansi Boys , American Gods , Coraline , and The Graveyard Book . He co-created the TV series adaptations of Good Omens and The Sandman . Gaiman has won numerous awards, including the Hugo , Nebula , and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both
6466-505: The conclusion that although it is unlikely that there is a single explanation for all cases where zombies are recognised by locals in Haiti, the mistaken identification of a wandering mentally ill stranger by bereaved relatives is the most likely explanation in many cases. People with a chronic schizophrenic illness, brain damage or learning disability are not uncommon in rural Haiti, and they would be particularly likely to be identified as zombies. Pulliam and Fonseca (2014) and Walz (2006) trace
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#17327719631766572-781: The creator of the characters, he was not involved in writing any of the above-mentioned books. Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with Michael Moorcock 's anti-hero Elric of Melniboné for Ed Kramer 's anthology Tales of the White Wolf. In 1996, Gaiman and Ed Kramer co-edited The Sandman: Book of Dreams . Nominated for the British Fantasy Award , the original fiction anthology featured stories and contributions by Tori Amos , Clive Barker , Gene Wolfe , Caitlín R. Kiernan , Tad Williams , and others. Asked why he likes comics more than other forms of storytelling, Gaiman said: "One of
6678-543: The early 1950s EC Comics , which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence. The comics, including Tales from the Crypt , The Vault of Horror and Weird Science , featured avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, which included "In the Vault", "Cool Air" and "Herbert West–Reanimator". Richard Matheson 's 1954 novel I Am Legend , although classified as
6784-542: The eighth issue of The Sandman , Gaiman and artist Mike Dringenberg introduced Death , the older sister of Dream, who became as popular as the series' title character. The limited series Death: The High Cost of Living launched DC's Vertigo line in 1993. Comics historian Les Daniels called Gaiman's work "astonishing" and noted that The Sandman was "a mixture of fantasy, horror, and ironic humor such as comic books had never seen before". DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz observed that " The Sandman became
6890-472: The film and its sequels, such as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), as well as the many zombie films it inspired, such as The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Zombi 2 (1979), are usually hungry for human flesh, although Return of the Living Dead introduced the popular concept of zombies eating human brains. There has been an evolution in the zombie archetype from supernatural to scientific themes. I Am Legend and Night of
6996-400: The first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929), the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of
7102-511: The first extraordinary success as a series of graphic novel collections, reaching out and converting new readers to the medium, particularly young women on college campuses, and making Gaiman himself into an iconic cultural figure." Gaiman and Jamie Delano were to become co-writers of the Swamp Thing series following Rick Veitch . An editorial decision by DC to censor Veitch's final storyline caused both Gaiman and Delano to withdraw from
7208-508: The history of the platform. In a collaboration with author Terry Pratchett , best known for his series of Discworld novels, Gaiman's first novel Good Omens was published in 1990. In 2011, Pratchett said that while the entire novel was a collaborative effort and most of the ideas could be credited to both of them, Pratchett did a larger portion of writing and editing if for no other reason than Gaiman's scheduled involvement with Sandman . The 1996 novelisation of Gaiman's teleplay for
7314-657: The joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on Sandman , I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I'm writing novels I'm painfully aware that I'm working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. You know, you can go back. We have things like The Golden Ass . And you go, well, I don't know that I'm as good as that and that's two and
7420-512: The late 1970s. The mid-1980s produced few zombie films of note. Perhaps the most notable entry, the Evil Dead trilogy, while highly influential, are not technically zombie films, but films about demonic possession , despite the presence of the undead. 1985's Re-Animator , loosely based on the Lovecraft story, stood out in the genre, achieving nearly unanimous critical acclaim and becoming
7526-570: The late 1980s, he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humour" style. Following this, he wrote the opening of what became his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novel Good Omens , about the impending apocalypse. After forming a friendship with Alan Moore , who taught him how to write comic scripts, Gaiman started writing comic books and picked up Miracleman after Moore finished his run on
7632-626: The legends of the Isle of Skye as his inspiration for The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains . In the early 1980s, Gaiman pursued journalism, conducting interviews and writing book reviews, as a means to learn about the world and to make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published. He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society. His first professional short story publication
7738-432: The light novel Is This a Zombie? In this context, zombies are often seen as stand-ins for discriminated groups struggling for equality, and the human–zombie romantic relationship is interpreted as a metaphor for sexual liberation and taboo breaking (given that zombies are subject to wild desires and free from social conventions). In Haitian folklore , a zombie ( Haitian French : zombi , Haitian Creole : zonbi )
7844-582: The limited series Black Orchid . Karen Berger , who later became head of DC Comics 's Vertigo , read Black Orchid and offered Gaiman a job: to re-write an old character, The Sandman, but to put his own spin on him. The Sandman tells the tale of the ageless , anthropomorphic personification of Dream that is known by many names, including Morpheus . The series began in January 1989 and concluded in March 1996. The various artists who contributed to
7950-413: The nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is viewed as overly credulous. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification. Particularly, this suggests cases where schizophrenia manifests
8056-547: The original Jonny Quest series (1964) and the James Bond novel Live and Let Die as well as its film adaptation both feature Caribbean villains who falsely claim the voodoo power of zombification to keep others in fear of them. Romero's modern zombie archetype in Night of the Living Dead was influenced by several earlier zombie-themed films, including White Zombie , Revolt of the Zombies (1936) and The Plague of
8162-490: The player. Later the same year, Sega 's arcade shooter The House of the Dead introduced running human zombies, who run towards the player and can also jump and swim. The running human zombies introduced in The House of the Dead video games became the basis for the "fast zombies" that became popular in zombie films during the early 21st century, starting with 28 Days Later (2002), the Resident Evil and House of
8268-437: The powders is part of a recently buried child's brain. The process described by Davis was an initial state of deathlike suspended animation , followed by re-awakening — typically after being buried — into a psychotic state. The psychosis induced by the drug and psychological trauma was hypothesised by Davis to reinforce culturally learned beliefs and to cause the individual to reconstruct their identity as that of
8374-580: The power of putting things in brackets." Narnia also introduced him to literary awards, specifically the Carnegie Medal , won by the concluding volume in 1956. When Gaiman won the 2010 Medal himself, he said "it had to be the most important literary award there ever was" and "if you can make yourself aged seven happy, you're really doing well – it's like writing a letter to yourself aged seven." Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
8480-433: The reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi , radiation , gases , diseases , plants , bacteria , viruses , etc. The English word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819 in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi". Dictionaries trace the word's origin to African languages, relating to words connected to gods, ghosts and souls. One of
8586-429: The resurrected dead are uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent; though they are not referred to as zombies, their portrayal was prescient, anticipating the modern conception of zombies by several decades. Edgar Rice Burroughs similarly depicted animated corpses in the second book of his Venus series , again without using the terms "zombie" or "undead". Avenging zombies would feature prominently in
8692-427: The school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third volume. For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewis 's The Chronicles of Narnia . He later recalled that "I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you ... I'd think, 'Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses.' I liked
8798-458: The season five episode " Day of the Dead ". The series also features a recurring alien race called the Gaim, who resemble the character of Dream and are named after Gaiman. Gaiman has also written at least three drafts of a screenplay adaptation of Nicholson Baker 's novel The Fermata for director Robert Zemeckis , although the project was stalled while Zemeckis made The Polar Express and
8904-480: The series include Sam Kieth , Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson , Shawn McManus , Marc Hempel , and Michael Zulli , with lettering by Todd Klein , colours by Daniel Vozzo, and covers by Dave McKean . The series became one of DC's top selling titles, eclipsing even Batman and Superman . The 75 issues of the regular series, along with an illustrated prose text and a special containing seven short stories, have been collected into 12 volumes that remain in print. In
9010-810: The series. He continued his professional relationship with Moore by contributing quotations for the supplemental materials in the Watchmen comic book series. Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham collaborated on several issues of the series before its publisher, Eclipse Comics , collapsed, leaving the series unfinished. His first published comic strips were four short Future Shocks for 2000 AD in 1986–87. He wrote three graphic novels with his favourite collaborator and long-time friend Dave McKean : Violent Cases , Signal to Noise , and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch . Impressed with his work, DC Comics hired him in February 1987, and he wrote
9116-554: The standard approach for explaining zombie origins in popular fiction that followed Resident Evil . There has also been shift towards an action approach, which has led to another evolution of the zombie archietype, the "fast zombie" or running zombie. In contrast to Romero's classic slow zombies, "fast zombies" can run, are more aggressive and are often more intelligent. This type of zombie has origins in 1990s Japanese horror video games. In 1996, Capcom 's survival horror video game Resident Evil featured zombie dogs that run towards
9222-524: The title. Gaiman produced two stories for DC's Secret Origins series in 1989. A Poison Ivy tale drawn by Mark Buckingham and a Riddler story illustrated by Bernie Mireault and Matt Wagner . A story that Gaiman originally wrote for Action Comics Weekly in 1989 was shelved due to editorial concerns but it was finally published in 2000 as Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame . In 1990, Gaiman wrote The Books of Magic ,
9328-405: The undead. Victor Halperin directed White Zombie (1932), a horror film starring Bela Lugosi . Here zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often still using this voodoo-inspired rationale, were initially uncommon in cinema, but their appearances continued sporadically through the 1930s to the 1960s, with films including I Walked with
9434-538: The vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of the vampire . Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce 's " The Death of Halpin Frayser " and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe . Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as H. P. Lovecraft , by Lovecraft's own admission. In
9540-474: The works of Dennis Wheatley ; The Ka of Gifford Hillary and The Haunting of Toby Jugg made a special impact on him. Another work that made a particular impression was J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings , which he got from his school library. Although they only had the first two of the novel's three volumes, Gaiman consistently checked them out and read them. He later won the school English prize and
9646-463: The world of children's books with the dark fairy tale Coraline . In 2008 he released another children's book, The Graveyard Book . It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. It is heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling 's The Jungle Book . As of late January 2009 , it had been on The New York Times Bestseller children's list for fifteen weeks. In 2013, The Ocean at
9752-476: The zombie lineage back to ancient Mesopotamia . In the Descent of Ishtar , the goddess Ishtar threatens: If you do not open the gate for me to come in, I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt, I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors, I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living: And the dead shall outnumber the living! She repeats this same threat in a slightly modified form in
9858-450: The zombie revival of the 2000s. The 1981 film Hell of the Living Dead referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion: an idea also used in Dan O'Bannon 's 1985 film Return of the Living Dead . Return of the Living Dead featured zombies that hungered specifically for human brains. Zombie films in the 1980s and 1990s were not as commercially successful as Dawn of the Dead in
9964-434: The zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero 's film Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was partly inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954). The word zombie is not used in Night of the Living Dead , but was applied later by fans. Following the release of such zombie films as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and The Return of
10070-494: Was Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991). According to Kim Newman in the book Nightmare Movies (2011), the "zombie revival began in the Far East" during the late 1990s, largely inspired by two Japanese zombie games released in 1996: Capcom 's Resident Evil , which started the Resident Evil video game series that went on to sell 24 million copies worldwide by 2006, and Sega 's arcade shooter House of
10176-608: Was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in Imagine Magazine in May 1984. While waiting for a train at London's Victoria Station in 1984, Gaiman noticed a copy of Swamp Thing by Alan Moore , and read it. Moore's approach to comics had such an impact on Gaiman that he later wrote "that was the final straw, what was left of my resistance crumbled. I proceeded to make regular and frequent visits to London's Forbidden Planet shop to buy comics". In 1984, he wrote his first book,
10282-669: Was a pharmacist. Neil has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy. The Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead , where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town; one of Gaiman's sisters works for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles. His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, "Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as
10388-433: Was able to read at the age of four. He said, "I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school, they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them—which would mean that I'd know what was coming up because I'd read it." When he was about ten years old, he read his way through
10494-567: Was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying. Romero's reinvention of zombies is notable in terms of its thematics; he used zombies not just for their own sake, but as a vehicle "to criticize real-world social ills—such as government ineptitude, bioengineering, slavery, greed and exploitation—while indulging our post-apocalyptic fantasies". Night
10600-457: Was another childhood favourite, and "a favourite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart." He also enjoyed Batman comics. Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools, including Fonthill School in East Grinstead, Ardingly College (1970–1974), and Whitgift School in Croydon (1974–1977). His father's position as a public relations official of
10706-570: Was born on 10 November 1960 in Portchester , Hampshire. Gaiman's family is of Polish-Jewish and other Ashkenazi origins. His great-grandfather emigrated to England from Antwerp before 1914 and his grandfather settled in Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores, changing the family name from Chaiman to Gaiman. His father, David Bernard Gaiman , worked in the same chain of stores; his mother, Sheila Gaiman (née Goldman),
10812-516: Was introduced into the Marvel Universe in the last issue of the Age of Ultron miniseries in 2013. Gaiman oversaw The Sandman Universe , a line of comic books published by Vertigo. The four series — House of Whispers , Lucifer , The Books of Magic , and The Dreaming — were written by new creative teams. The line launched on 8 August 2018. After teaming with Colleen Doran for
10918-783: Was published from August 2006 to March 2007. In 2009, Gaiman wrote a two-part Batman story for DC Comics to follow Batman R.I.P. titled " Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? " a play-off of the classic Superman story " Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? " by Alan Moore. He contributed a twelve-part Metamorpho serial drawn by Mike Allred for Wednesday Comics , a weekly newspaper-style series. Gaiman and Paul Cornell co-wrote Action Comics #894 (December 2010), which featured an appearance by Death. In October 2013, DC Comics released The Sandman: Overture with art by J. H. Williams III . Gaiman's Angela character
11024-441: Was released in February 2017. Several of his novels have been published as paperbacks with retro covers by artist Robert McGinnis . Gaiman wrote the 1996 BBC dark fantasy television series Neverwhere . He co-wrote the screenplay for the movie MirrorMask with his old friend Dave McKean for McKean to direct. In addition, he wrote the localised English language script for the anime movie Princess Mononoke , based on
11130-478: Was stopped when the anthology itself was discontinued. In the mid-1990s, he also created a number of new characters and a setting that was to be featured in a title published by Tekno Comix . The concepts were then altered and split between three titles set in the same continuity: Lady Justice , Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man , and Teknophage , and tie-ins. Although Gaiman's name appeared prominently as
11236-452: Was the first of six films in Romero's Living Dead series . Its first sequel, Dawn of the Dead , was released in 1978. Lucio Fulci 's Zombi 2 was released just months after Dawn of the Dead as an ersatz sequel ( Dawn of the Dead was released in several other countries as Zombi or Zombie ). Dawn of the Dead was the most commercially successful zombie film for decades, up until
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