Photos: The Zombies of Summer

It's summer in New York, and that means one thing: zombie invasion! But don't let that stop you from doing all the fun summer things you love....

Kick it with your BFFs! Woo! SCHOOL'S OUT! Let's eat some BRAINS you guys!

(to the tune of that Supergrass song from Clueless)

we are YOUNG
we eat BRAINS
we're unDEAD
we're inSANE
eat our FRIENDS
in the NIGHT
and feel ALLLLLLRIIIIIGHT!

Best friends forever! Literally!

Frisbee! Remember guys, use your pointer finger as a guide for where you want the Frisbee to go...ah, they'll get the hang of it!

More of this joke after the jump....

Rollerblading! Be sure to wear appropriate helmet and pads, though if you're already dead do whatever the hell you want.

Or just people-watch in the park! New York is one of the most diverse cities in the world, you're such to see plenty of interesting people who may or may not want to eat your brains.

More pictures on Geekanerd's Flickr, or check out BackSeatConceptions (the NYC Zombie Crawl Organizers).

Zombie Hunter Zombies

Aah...so remember those Zombie Hunters we hired to cover World Zombie Day in NYC about a month ago? Well, we at Geekanerd got a little distracted by recent political events and never really sorted through the texts and photos they sent us, but we finally did, and well...


Things...things did not go so well for those guys. Here's the full, unfortunate account of the days events.

World Zombie Day 2008: Zombie Hunter Edition

The Geekanerd staff has attended past Zombie Walks in full undead regalia, but this time we wanted to cover the event from a different angle. So we hired two dashing zombie hunters to cover the event for us.

It cost us a pretty penny (those guys think they can charge anything) but I think the results were worth it.

They twittered us updates, which we'll post along with photos (some of which they took, but most of which we had to snag from the Flickr accounts of nyczombiecrawl, MissMoll, hesterk, and hellzkeeper ...geez, what did we pay these guys for again?)


zombegone here is a pic of us at clients house bout to go track n hack some zombs 1:25pm


zombegone zombs were gathering at Beauty Bar in manhattan. festive atmosphere. saw one that had walked all the way from hawaii which answers a dollar bet we had on if zombies can walk on the bottom of the ocean 2:15pm


zombegone think we recognized this one. disappeared after new york marathon. still sort of half jogging 2:30pm


zombegon done w recon, startng a sweep 2:41pm


zombegone got the jump on these guys 2:36pm


zombegone good session 2:55pm

zombegone this is something you don't like to see, but it happens 3:30pm


zombegone followed horde to union square - more than expected. price is going up 4pm

zombegon spotted non-com hunter w crowbar. whatev hav fun getting eaten lol4:13

zombegone horde on the move down broadway. definitely more than expected 4:40pm


zombegone saw some zombies wearing 80s clothing. means long-dead are rising. bad sign 5pm

zombegone at astor place now. mobbed glass facade at starbucks. zombies getting rowdier 5:15pm

zombegone zombs in car wtf getng out of hre 5:25pm

zombegone BRAAAAAIIIIJKBKBNMNNSSS 5:41pm

zombegone CCARFRRRRR BBNBRRAAAKIIIINNNSS 6:02pm

zombegoneYYUUUU PAAAY NAAO INNNN BRRRARAIINNNS!111 6:36pm

zombegone KLLL ZZOMMBBBEE HNNTTR 4 BRAISNNS 6:57pm

****

So...yeah. I guess that's just an occupational hazard when you're in that line of work. I mean...kind of unfortunate it happened on a job they were doing for our site but...I mean, I'm sure they knew the risks. And it's probably how they would have wanted to go. Or maybe not. I'm not sure what the psychology is there. Anyway.

Special thanks to Hellzkeeper for sending us a link to their pictures. If you have any shots of these semi-departed heroes, please send them in so the Zom-Be-Gone name may live on. In a tributey way, not an undead way. You know what I mean.

Video: NYC Zombie Crawl 2008

Photos are one thing, but in order to really understand the mood of the Zombie Crawl, you need to hear the groans of the undead, observe their lurching gait, and hear the the plaintive shouts of the organizer; "Don't break the windows!" Enjoy Gnerd Johnny's 2 minute highlight reel of zombies on the move through Williamsburg.

Photos: Zombie Crawl 2008

I walked in the 2008 Zombie Crawl in Williamsburg, and it was everything I had hoped it would be. And what I hoped it would be was an excuse to walk around slowly with my arms outstretched and move threateningly towards cars and people. Fun! While I enjoyed the experience from a zombie-eye view, Gnerd operatives Bishop and Johnny covered the event as humans; check out some of our photo coverage after the jump, and check out our video highlights!

Photos and write-up after the jump...


This being a 21 and over event, participants met up at Duff's, a bar which I was assured was the heavy metal bar in Brooklyn. Those shadowy figures on the roof are probably FBI agents making sure there's nothing actually supernatural going on.


A couple hours before the walk began, the event organizers had set up a make-up area on the bar's front porch where walkers could get bloodied up and rotted for the low low cost of nothing.

The woman who did my make-up had worked on the awesome ThrillerFest zombies a few months ago. I went with traditional grey, though other people were getting a more colorful dark green look, and some went with a more ghoulish white. Zombies come in a beautiful rainbow of colors, just like you and me.

A close up of my "killer" neck scar (stop me).

Me in full zombie documentarian regalia. I was going for a film student who decided it would be a good idea to get footage of the zombie invasion. Wap wap waaa! You can't see it here but there's fake blood on my camera and lanyard/shooting permit as well.

At about six o'clock, Organizer Zombie announced it was time to get moving through the streets of Williamsburg.

Just before we left Duff's, a photographer got in his car and asked the zombies to attack him while he shot from the inside. The zombies were all to eager to oblige, and I swear that bumper damage was there before we started.

Our hunting instincts now fully charged, the walk began west through the warehouse lined streets North 3rd towards the main artery of Brooklyn hipsterdom, Bedford Ave. Our final destination was Passout Records, where zomb-friendly rap artist MC Chris would perform a free set.

Some zombies declined to get into character, but a good chunk really went for it, groaning, stumbling, and most importantly, walking towards any sign of fresh brains. This improvisatory aspect of the walk (the RPG aspect, if you will) was the real draw for me; being given an excuse to act out all the horror conventions you've ever seen on screen in real life, and on unsuspecting bystanders, is a very surreal and engrossing experience.

The mob's first big civilian encounters was this SUV as it drove down North 3rd, alone and helpless.


My favorite moment of the whole day was when we passed Radegast Hall & Biergarten, a huge restaurant with rusty iron bars on the window. The mob got one look at those gothic, presumably sturdy bars and attacked the facade in what must have seemed like a scene from Night of the Living Dead to the diners inside. Most of those inside looked amused at this impromptu attack, some slightly less so (hipster hate, or more likely hipster self-hate sometimes provokes extreme eye-rolling towards these kind of goofy events).

After about 20 seconds of mobbing the exterior and doorway, Redegast's black-aproned host ran out with a menu in hand and beat the zombies back, obviously willing to sacrifice his life for his customers. He even closed the wrought iron front gates in order to keep the undead out, and the horde moved on, defeated. I'd expect he got some serious tips.

Zombies continued to gravitate towards cars all the way to Passout Records. Since zombies move slowly and don't pay attention to cross walks any more than other New Yorkers, we clogged up traffic a bit and at least one humorless and hurried citizen lay on his horn, to little avail. That was actually the only person I saw all day that seemed to be genuinely annoyed with the display, pretty much everyone else we passed in a car or on the street responded with positive or at least passive attention, and usually with cell-phone camera in hand.


Walking through Brooklyn brownstones...

It took less than ten minutes to make it to Passout Records, where a band was wrapping up their set. There a grill setup outside with free hotdogs and burgers, which made for a lot of freeform eating by the zombies. At that point some of the mob went back to Duff's to drink and get ready for the spooky cabaret/burlesque show later that night, and some elected to stay for the MC Chris show.

The Gnerd crew had to cut out at that point, but we got a few more pics of the horde outside Passout. One of my favorite things about photo coverage of these events is seeing the different spins on the "zombie look" that people come up with. As with my own costume, I love it when people create outfits that indicate where they were and what they were doing when they got zombified. With that in mind, here is our Zombie Look Book.

Satan Worshipper Zombie.

Armless Cowboy Zombie. Rodeo accident, maybe?

Doctor Zombie, aka Jay, who's an actual medical professional who made his outfit with actual scrubs. Zombie doctors are great; as anyone who read the first issue of The Walking Dead knows, hospitals are zombie hot zones; people come in who've been bit, then they turn into zombies and bite the doctors...let's just say it goes from bad to worse.

Wedding Party Zombies. Poster Tagline: Till Death DON'T They Part!

A literal take on the iPod Zombie stereotype.

Geek cred alert! "Trogdor's the man! Actually he's the dragon-man!"

Milkman Zombie out of character on Bedford Ave.

And finally, because Star Wars cosplayers will use literally any event as an excuse to break out the costume, and who can blame them, we got to see some awesome Jango Fett on Zombie action.

After posing for the picture, I asked her (it's a girl in there if you can't tell) if she was there to hunt zombies, and she responded by shooting me. I really walked into that one.

Even zombie teeth can't penetrate Mandalorian armor.

Jango says something cool before blasting the zombie horde.

That does it for our photo coverage of the Zombie con. There's a little bonus material Geekanerd's Flickr account, if you absolutely cannot get enough of this stuff.