The Dead Will Walk: Living Dead Weekend 2026 Recap | Zombie Book Club Ep 153

Dan and Leah survived an eleven-hour drive, a basement "murder bathroom" straight out of Barbarian, and the humbling reality of vending books at a zombie movie convention. Welcome to Living Dead Weekend 2026 at the legendary Monroeville Mall. They break down what indie authors actually face at genre cons: the economics of competing with $5 DVD stacks, the split-second power of cover design, and why one patron-saint reader buying from every table can change the whole vibe of a weekend.

The highlights hit hard though; meeting John A. Russo to talk ghouls vs. zombies, coming face-to-face with the iconic Hare Krishna zombie from Dawn of the Dead, and soaking in a fandom that refuses to die. They confess their biggest regret (missing Tina Romero), share lessons to carry into future cons, and lay out what's coming next.

Links & Contact Info

Living Dead Weekend / Monroeville Mall

• Official site: thelivingdeadweekend.com — https://www.thelivingdeadweekend.com/
  Living Dead Weekend
  
  
• A note for listeners: this may have been the final Living Dead Weekend at Monroeville Mall, which is reportedly set for demolition after being acquired by Walmart. Here's a write-up: https://www.publicsource.org/monroeville-mall-last-living-dead-weekend/
  PublicSource
  
  

Transcript

Welcome And Time Warps

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a convention. I'm Dan, and when I'm not at conventions, I'm writing at conventions because there wasn't a whole lot else to do at the convention.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

And I'm Leah. When I'm not at conventions, I'm working, but also I was working at the convention because there wasn't a whole lot to do at the convention while I was sitting at our booth. That's true. You did you did work. I worked all weekend. A solid like eight hours on one day, I feel like. Yeah, it was a living dead. I was the living dead. My soul left my body and I just worked. Yeah. Hi, everybody. Yeah. What are we talking about, Leah? Living Dead weekend 2026. It's over now. It's over. It's uh the day before this episode comes out. We got home on Monday night.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

You mean we're recording the day before this episode comes out?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yes. I love fucking with time in our episodes and just confusing everybody. I was confused. I'm like, what is time? Don't make me sing the song though, but the what is time by Elephant Revival. I don't know that's a good one. It's like a compulsion. Can you sing it for me? No. It's when the sun comes up, I'll just say it. It's when the sun comes up, the sun goes down and the people dance all around. That's time. Oh, okay. It's not the factory machine time. Oh. I'm not familiar with that one either. It's telling where you gotta be.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

That one. What about the one by Pink Floyd? I feel like I should know that. I don't. Um, wasting away the moments that make up a dull day. Furter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yay, yay.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Oh, we think we're so funny. Uh but hi, longtime zombesties. Good to he good to chat with you. It's been a little while since Dan and I have recorded, and welcome, new friends from Living Dead Weekend. I'm very hopeful there's a certain librarian from, I believe, North Carolina listening that we had a great chat with. Hi. Was it North Carolina? Or South Carolina. I should have, I should remember, but I feel like it's North Carolina. You can correct us if you're listening.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

You know, despite living in the South, every time I hear the accent of the Carolinas, the Georgias. I just assume Georgia. I'm just like, you're from Georgia. And they're like, I'm from North Carolina. I'm like, yeah, but that's kind of like Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

And like there's a certain, there's a certain vibe of like a quality, progressive white guy.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

With a southern accent. And this man walked up and I was like, I love you. Yeah. And then we started talking about band books. Gentleman

What Living Dead Weekend Is

SPEAKER_02 2:40

vibes. Absolutely. Quality human. Um, but yeah, talking about our trip, Dan.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Me. What is Living Dead Weekend for the people who are still unaware? Living Dead Weekend is a celebration of George Romero and his films, as well as all of the people who worked on his films. Um, there's a great number of people that still uh come to the convention to meet fans and do autographs and take pictures from like night uh Dawn of the Dead. There's a few from Night of the Living Dead. There's a few from Day of the Dead, but I the biggest numbers I see, Dawn of the Dead.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Yeah. And Dawn of the Dead consistently has been the one that people have like that's been the focus, which makes sense because it takes place at Monroeville Mall where it was filmed. And it does make sense. What I find most saddening is how many people, when I like regular humans, non-zombesty humans, when I'm like, Have you seen Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead? They're like, No. And not only no, but they don't know what it is. Yeah. And like I knew what it was. You need to change it. Even before I'd even watched it. I mean, I'm trying. One one coworker at a time. This is I'm proselytizing the zombie way. It might be freaking out some of my colleagues. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You want to know something that I want to do that I've been like kind of daydreaming for the last week or so? What? Um, I want to get uh an outdoor projector. And like uh they make like these inflatable movie screens that are like basically like a 200-inch TV. Inflatable? Yeah, they inflate and they're gonna be. Well, the the the it has like a canvas that hangs from the inflatable bits. The frame is the inflatable part. So it just inflates, the frame inflates. So, anyways, what I I I would love to just like have an outdoor movie theater that we just invite our friends to and we force them to watch zombie movies.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Or we just have some zombie friends over. Yeah, that's you. Have them come visit. Uh so let's get into it, Dan. Oh, yeah, the Living Dead weekend. Yeah. So we were there last year. We have a whole episode about it. Last year we brought our microphones and our recording development. The last one ever. Yeah, thought it was the last one ever. Talked a lot about that with people, had a whole episode of interviews of people who were coming to the the event. Then they had another one in the fall of 2025. Then we thought that was the last one ever. And then we learned Oh, yeah, it was 2025. Oh my god, it's been what is time? Full circle moment. Yeah. Uh, then we learned that they were gonna have one in 2026 because Walmart, uh, the actual corporate consumerist zombie in in the room, uh, has purchased the land and is gonna turn it, I think, into a what do they call them? Uh oh, a distribution center. Yeah, distribution center. And apparently that's not starting until the spring of 2027. Um, so this is this one that we just went to is also supposed to be the last, but then we heard that there may be another one in the fall again. Yeah. So they're squeezing in as many as they can.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah. So the last one we went to was the last one, and then this one, they were like, maybe it's the last one. I don't know, whatever. Yeah. There are definitely different vibes this year.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah, last year, like 2025, I think we also had our own different vibes. 2025, we were really excited. There was like a whole bunch of people we'd never met that we were gonna be connecting with. And everybody who was there was really excited to be there and thinking like this is the last one. And we met some really incredible people. Shout out John, you're still my fave. Um, outside of my zombesti co-work co- What the fuck is wrong with me? I'm having a mental breakdown live in this episode. I can't I can't use words anymore. I'm so tired. Zombesti coworkers. My zombesti coworkers, that's fucking scary that I'm calling you my co-workers. You're my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

You are co-workers now. I mean, you know, nightmare. Some of our zombesties, they're they're writing books, they're going to cons. Uh, it it does become work.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, it feels like a little bit like we're colleagues when we're all vending together. But anyways, great people. Um, other other favorite people we met was Green Man, who we saw again this year.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I don't think I saw Green Man last year.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Yeah, you I think you did, but you just didn't know that was him, and I knew it was him because we talked more because he showed me his art. Green Man, let me know.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Did do you remember me? I'm sure you remember. Was I getting a smoothie when when you stopped by?

SPEAKER_02 7:02

I doubt it. I think you're probably just busy interviewing somebody or something. Because it was so busy, we barely had time to eat. Yeah. This year, I feel like we need to start

The Drive And A Breakdown

SPEAKER_02 7:10

with act one before even getting into what 2026 was like. Oh. The drive there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Uh the drive there, I mean if we didn't stop anywhere, uh, even for fuel, it'd be like a nine and a half hour drive. Um, we did stop.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah, I had a an actual mental breakdown the night that we left. I did. Um, I've been under a lot of stress lately for a lot of reasons. And as you all know, you've all been, if you've been listening for a while, you know the last year has been a little bit strange for me. This time last year, peak happiness. Happiest I'd ever been. Literally. This time this year, struggling, but figuring it out. Um, and yeah, I I was basically crying with the urge to vomit when we were in our first couple of hours of driving. We had to stop early in Hartford, Connecticut and sleep in a gross hotel that kind of smelt funky. The crying and screaming vomiting thing, real life. Yeah, and I really thought I was like that first leg of the trip, I was like, I don't think I can do this. Like, I'm not well enough, I'm not mentally well enough to go and talk to people all the time.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Before we even got to the hotel, which was like only two and a half hours. Two and a half hours away. Yeah. You were you were like, let's just turn around. Yeah. Uh Alice can have the Airbnb. Let's just turn around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah, I wasn't okay. Um, but you know what a good night of sleep does. Especially when you've had nothing but bad nights of sleep. Yeah. I mean, part of the mental breakdown was that I wasn't sleeping and I was under a lot of stress and pressure.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Um a supremely bad day to kick it off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah. Very and also just like had worked all that day, had worked really wild hours before that, and was exhausted. Um that day was supposed to be like a half day, wasn't it? It was supposed to be a chill day, but uh the three days before we left, I had meetings from nine to five every day. So it was it was rough. And what I've learned about myself, people, is that three hours into back-to-back meetings, I'm not functional anymore. I can't process words. People sound like they are the um, what's the word? Uh the Sesame Street aliens. Like, wah, oh, the ones that are like meep, beep, wah, me, me. And then like I'm in a meeting and people are like talking and they're expecting me to listen and actually process their words. And then worse, they ask me a question. They ask me deep questions, like questions that require more than two brain cells to rub together. And I'm just like, are you I can't.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

It's like 3 55 in the afternoon. They're like, How excited are you about this? Oh, that's an easy answer.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

They're not asking about how excited. They're like, tell me about what you're the one that like really broke me was like asking me what my dreams were for part of the work. And I just was like, my I don't have any right now. Yeah. And I said that in the most diplomatic way that I could, which is like, I need time to think about this. But also, yeah, it's 3 45 in the afternoon. I've been in a meeting since nine. I don't have any thoughts. I have no more thoughts. Yeah. I don't, I don't have thoughts other than please don't make me think more. Nothing good will come of this brain. So that was the state I was in. And then we woke up the next morning at the hotel and I felt better.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

And so it was just like, fuck it, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah. And you know, we're two and a half hours in, so we only have seven hours of driving left. So we're easy peasy. Yeah. And we left at nine. We left at nine and we arrived at eight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

It was not a great, there was a bunch of traffic. Oh, there was so much traffic. There was uh traffic from just being in a city, and then there was also traffic from uh construction, and then there was just traffic because there was a burnt out. Was it an 18-wheeler truck? What was it? Oh, it's a dump truck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

A dump truck caught fire. So that was fun. Yeah. Hopefully no one died. And I looked at it and I'm like, yeah, that looks like a normal day of work.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Yeah. So we got stuck on the road for a very long time. The upside was that we I got a really good smoothie from a place called Near Me Cafe, somewhere in Pennsylvania. I don't remember where. I think around I think it's just a little past Grand. Yeah, it's a little bit south. A little past the location of the office. Yeah. Um, great place. And I also did work on that day because I thought, why not? I'm stuck in a car. So I did. And then yeah, we didn't get there till eight.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, there was there was a few times that because of work and because of how spotty internet connections are. Oh, yeah, we had to do it. We just had to stop for like an hour or two in some places.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

It's a good preview because Dan has been talking, you've been talking about getting like a bunch of stuff to make it so that I can work on the road with our camper, and that made it abundantly clear that just thinking that because we're on the interstate, it's gonna be okay. Yeah. Not okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Most of the time it is. Um, but there's some spots, any anywhere that says scenic view up ahead. Very beautiful scenic views of Pennsylvania. But don't expect to be able to do a video call.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

I feel like Pennsylvania gets a bad rap from New Englanders. I've heard a lot of New Englanders be like, ugh, Pennsylvania. It's the worst state. And I don't I can't speak to like oh no, Connecticut's the worst state. I agree. And Pennsylvania's beautiful. Yeah. It's a large state, but it it's it's gorgeous. We saw some beautiful things. But yes, we're gonna have to get set up for our longer road trips so I can work on the road. Yeah, I like Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

It's just a big state. So like when when you're when you're on a long road trip and it's like now entering Pennsylvania, you're like, oh great, I'll be here for the next six and a half hours if nothing slows me

The Airbnb Murder Bathroom

SPEAKER_00 12:50

down. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

That was the trip. And then when we were getting close, we were texting, so we got an Airbnb with Alice B. Sullivan and her awesome sister Nina. Um, Alice got there first because their drive was shorter, but also I think, well, they did pass the, they also got in that bit of traffic, I think, but maybe not as long as I was the burn down road on that road. Yeah. But I got a text from Alice that's like, we took the upstairs because there's two bedrooms upstairs and left you all the main floor bedroom downstairs. Uh because we figured you two would want privacy. Oh, and by the way, downstairs is a murder bathroom. And I'm like, what is a murder bathroom? And I'm thinking, I'm like, wait, so you stuck me and Dan where the murder bathroom is? Because my mental state's not good. Yeah. I'm like, this is not like Alice. Alice would never do this. Alice would. Alice would not. Alice would. Alice would not force us into Alice. Are you kidding me? Let's fast forward to me. Not to you, but to me. Maybe. Let's fast forward to the moment in Living Dead weekend where Dan was putting crackers in his mouth and then handing them to Alice.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Well, I was eating crackers, and Alice was like, You're not gonna give me any crackers. So I took a cracker out of my mouth and I put it into her hand, and then she just held it out, and I just kept on adding crackers to the pile, and she didn't stop me.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

And then I asked her, Why did why? Like I was well, I was working actually, and Nina was like, Leah, I need you to see what's happening. And at that point, there were like four and a half crackers. There's a small one at the top of the pile. Yeah. And Alice's face. That was the first one. And Alice's Alice's face was completely neutral and blank. And I'm like, Alice, why? And her response was because it would be rude to not take them. And this is why I know she wouldn't give us the murder bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Alice would give me the murder bathroom. Okay, yes, but you deserve it, especially after that. Yeah. All weekend, it was kind of like sibling vibes. It very much was. Between Alice and I. Uh at one point I did grab Alice's hairbrush and I put it on top of the door frame where it was just out of reach of Alice and uh and her sister. Yeah, because they're smaller people than us. Yeah. Then I left the room.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

That's a certain kind of love. Yeah. Um, it is cute though. You two are very funny together. But back to the murder bathroom. So now I'm convinced that Alice and Nina have left us the murder bathroom. And I'm also aware from the photos of this Airbnb that there's a really nice bathtub. And I'm like, where's the bathtub? And they're like, upstairs. And I at that point I was like, the betrayal. I felt. I was like, you left me. What is this? And like they wouldn't even explain to you like what a murder bathroom was. They just said she said that the the shower was super small. And I was like, Do you think we're gonna fit in it? And she wrote back no comment because I think she didn't want to say something that might not feel nice, like nice. The answer is no. No. I mean, I didn't even try. Yeah. Um, so we get there.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

There was also a hole in the ceiling above the toilet.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Okay, well, let's let's let's get to the basic.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Also, there's bugs in the toilet, and they've buried up inside of the toilet.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Did you even look at the murder bathroom?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

So this is just you're making things up. You don't even know. This is what Alice told me.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

That's not what Alice told you.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Alice told me about the bugs. The bugs were in the shower. The bugs were also in the toilet. I looked at that toilet, and what there was was shit stains on that toilet. There was not bugs.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

So we get into the Airbnb. And and like many things, it's like online dating, the pictures look great. But there are suspiciously like you see the one shower and it's like you can't really see it very well.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

You know, but it looks like a shower, and it's like, I don't really need to see the shower very well. Everything else looks great. First of all, before we even get into the house, we drive by an abandoned, dilapidated, I believe, formerly Catholic school where there is a cross where with probably stained glass that's now just a hole. It's all grown up around it. Like it was apocalyptic. Abandoned homes everywhere. There are some homes that just have trash all over them. Yeah. It was like, if you've seen the movie Barbarian, immediately I was like, oh no. Yeah. There's so many barbarian vibes. This is the Airbnb for barbarian. We will be pulled into a dungeon and forced to do things that we should not do as adults.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

There was a fake door, wasn't there? Or a door that nobody opened?

SPEAKER_02 17:13

So there is no. So we get there. I'm like, show me this murder bathroom. That's when I learned the murder bathroom is not the murder bathroom is the basement bathroom. If Alice had said basement, I would have known we were okay. But I didn't know. So I look at the main floor bathroom. It's a small shower. It's so small that the thing, the shower head is like just a rain shower, like right above your head. Yeah, like there wasn't room for like a spigot. My shoulders would, I didn't even try, but I knew that they would touch either side, and thus it would be impossible to shower. So then I was like, show me this murder bathroom. So Alice takes me downstairs, instant creepy basement vibes. And the quote unquote bathroom, the third bathroom. The reason why we chose this place, because I was like, Alice can get a bathroom, Nina can get a bathroom, Dan and I can get a bathroom. That's perfect. Everybody gets a bathroom. No, it's like a saloon door, like a bifolding saloon door to get into the bathroom, which means there's no privacy, and it's literally like just underneath all of the ducting. Well, the privacy is that nobody wants to go into the basement. Correct. And then you open this weird saloon bifold folding door thing that's green that like doesn't touch the ceiling or the floor. It's like maybe four feet high. And you have to step up to get to the toilet. The toilet has shit on it. There's definitely insects. And I briefly looked up into the murder shower, and the murder shower has no ceiling. It is just like insulation and ducts.

unknown 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Was really weird. Then we start looking around, we see a bunch of doors, and I was like, I gotta fucking know where all these doors go because I've seen Barbarian. I don't want that outcome for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Which one of us would have been um a person? You ruined the movie.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

You're not supposed to say the thing that happened. You don't know who's watched it.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Okay, I'll bleep it out.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Okay. But which one of us? Which one of us would be would do the thing that we're not supposed to be doing as adults against our will? Um I hate to say it. I think Nina would go first. You think it's Nina? I do because they're small. Oh, okay. I mean, I think they would be, I think that we would be because we were on the main floor and closer to the basement, we you and I would be the most convenient victims. Yeah, I would have been the first victim. You I would have been the one that's like you're too large and strong to be easily maneuvered.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Well, that's why it's me first. Okay. I'm the threatening one. I'm the one that like everyone would be like, go deal with that. So the the the barbarian is gonna take me out first. I'm gonna be the one that like is panic crawling through the dark and then comes into focus in the in the flashlight. Oh my god. And you're like, ah, what's that? Oh, it's Dan. And then I'm like, we gotta get out of here right now, and then I get dragged off into the darkness. That's that's what I would be. Oh. Because that's when you're like, there's no hope.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Do you think that I think that Alice would be the final girl?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Alice has final girl vibes. I'd be locked in the cage at some point. Yeah. Um, Nina, I I would you know what? I would rather they survive than us, but I feel like they were on the second floor, so that would make it harder for them to be the first people to go. But, anyways, we're in the basement, we're opening all the doors. One of the doors goes to the garage. That's fine. Kind of a funky garage. Another door goes to storage. Then there's another door way in the back that doesn't look like it's you have to kind of be like, oh, there's a door there. Open it. The most rank fucking smell. Immediately I got out. I was like, nope, can't even look. And then I was like, Alice, can you tell me if there's any other doors in this room? So she went into the world's smelliest, nastiest basement room, and there were apparently no more doors, and none of us died that weekend. So that we know of. That we know of. Do you think that anyone was replaced?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Maybe we um we all died, and we're now in our own personal hells.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

I mean, I had a great day lying in my hammock yesterday, so I don't think that's true. If this is hell, it's pretty this is the false victory. Well, the false victory is what happens next, Dan. Oh, what happens next? Well, we sleep through the night, we don't get murdered. We have a lovely breakfast with Nina

Vendor Setup And A Slow Start

SPEAKER_02 21:15

and Alice. It's a great time. Yeah. Uh we get to Living Dead weekend. We have to set up that morning. We were hoping to set up on Thursday so we could have a leisurely start, but of course, because we were late, we could not. So we had to get there at 9 30. Things started at 12. And I had so much hope. I was like, this is gonna be great. We've brought some amazing authors with their books with us. We're gonna have so many wonderful conversations, and it was dead.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

We set up a beautiful display. Day one dead. We got to sit right beside Alice and Nina. Yeah, which was awesome. And then literally, like the good parts that made me feel hopeful in the beginning was Alice and Nina were right beside us. Joseph Pesavantos was adjacent to us. Was basically like basically behind us, and we could literally like walk. Over to his spot from behind our um booth to his booth and vice versa and chat.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

We didn't give Joe any chairs. What? They didn't give him any chairs. They didn't give Joe chairs? Yeah, I gave I gave I gave Joseph our chairs.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

That's absurd. Because I went and bought campaigns. Yeah, we went and bought chairs because we knew the chair, the folding chairs were not gonna cut it for us with all of our injuries. And then Brandon Staraki was basically almost right across from Joseph. And then to the right of Brandon ended up being um Mark Sciano, who we met last year. Yeah. Who had told us about a film called The Glass Coffin. The Glass Coffin, which we were super excited to see. And we got a DVD that we have to watch. We're gonna have him on the show and talk about it. Yeah. So really excited about that. And he's also an author. And then right beside him was Steve Urena. We didn't even know Steve was coming. We actually didn't know until the following day because Steve didn't show up for the first day. Yeah, because there, well, that was for extenuating circumstances that are not ours to share. But he was he was there for the Saturday, and it was so great to meet him in person, and he had the best business card I've ever seen. Yeah. Dan, can you describe the business card?

SPEAKER_00 23:09

So Steve Urana's business card is a it's not a business card. It is a full page comic um about the about Pluto, who's really who's on a revenge tour against all the other planets for kicking him out of the solar system. Um and then on the back, he's got all of his info and QR codes and stuff. Like it's it's it's brilliant as a business card because like you can't throw it out. You wouldn't want to because it's actually a comic and it's cute. You'd want to put it like on your fridge or something, you know. It's it's uh it's pretty great. I I still have to read it though. I I haven't had a chance to like look through anything that we've gotten that week.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

But that's because you were too busy feeding uh Alice your weird wet crackers. Yeah, like uh Iago and and Aladdin. Because I had time to read it, so you had time. You were just you were antagonizing your little sister, I think. It's true.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

I I guess I could have read it if but you know, whenever I'm I'm handed things at a convention, like if I don't place them in a pile somewhere, I have horrible anxiety that I'm gonna leave it behind or lose it. So like I can't read things while I'm there. I can't look at things. I'm just like, this goes in the pile of things that can't get wrinkled. We did have a very special don't get wrinkled pile. It's true. And it was it was difficult to keep it safe.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Yeah. And we ran into a couple of other people we'd seen from the last year as well. It was really nice to see them as um visitors, not vendors. That was lovely. That was like the moment early part of Friday, and like, okay, we're not not selling a lot of books, not selling a lot of stickers. People are like clearly not really interested in shopping.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Um, which, you know, a cot the economy. And also it's supposedly, again, the last one, and they're really focused on getting signatures from all the zombies who are present, which frankly we did too.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

I got I got the impression that a lot of people that were there wanted to find like special uh George Romero themed merchandise.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

I saw a small tile that I would say is half an inch wide and an inch, maybe an inch and a half long, in a little baggie with a a thing that said that it's a tile from Monroville Mall. You could take a piece of Monroeville Mall with you. Do you want to know how much that cost?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Oh, it's gotta be high. I'm gonna say $50. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Whoa, I'm good at guessing. Not wrong at all. And I I picked the smallest thing because there's a whole bunch. There's like chunks of like cement and parts of walls and things. And so I was like, oh, this tile's small and light. Like it's the Berlin wall. Maybe, maybe for like 10 bucks I'll take a piece of Monroe Villement home with me. That's like $50. No. Were they selling a lot of them? There was like a whole like display of them. I mean, were the people buying it though? Oh, I don't know. Every time I got to look at it, something is when we were going by I was going back to the bathroom. Yeah. So I I walked by that particular one a lot because it was towards the bathroom. Yeah. Uh I didn't really see a lot of people buying anything.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Except for the person who was beside us. And I feel really bad because I can't remember their business name right now. It's something heroes. All our heroes. Hold on. Well, I feel really bad. I can't remember their name. Trying to find it. But, anyways, they basically sold animal collars and a couple of cute like chew toys and stuff for pets. And they were killing it. They had a great deal. One collar for $15, two for $25. How can you say no to that? Even you and I, we bought the living dead ones. Yeah, that's good pet collar pricing. Yeah, and like, and the woman who was beside us selling was so brilliant. Literally, anybody who walked by, she'd just be like, Do you have any pets? And they'd be like, Yeah. Or she'd be like, Do you have a cat or a dog? And like people were just like, Yes. So I wish I had brought my pet portrait stuff. I feel like I could have sold a bunch of pet portraits.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

But I wasn't thinking irony that coming to a zombie con with zombie themed merchandise was the bad idea. And he should have come with the pet super cutesy pet themed merchandise.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Yeah. I mean, Alice was like, I told you so. You should have brought your art, your like typical art, not your zombie art. And I was like, Well, excuse me for thinking that this audience would be more interested in zombies.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, it's a lot of stuff to bring.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

It is a lot of stuff to bring.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

And it's like the the the table space that you have, like we had it full. We we had that table full of books and stickers. Like there wasn't any more room unless we took some of that stuff down.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was too much stuff. So regardless, they did well. I think the people across from us, um, fiend weavers, husband and wife team, shout out Sandra and Gil. I don't think you're gonna hear this, but you're awesome. We had lots of fun getting to know you. And Gil makes these pipe cleaner character things. I don't even have to describe them. Like little monsters, yeah. Little monsters. He had a pride dra for pride, which was really great. And I was thinking about getting it, but it was already gone. Uh sold right away. Damn. He had a pride spider, he had a prider. A prider, yeah. He had a negan, he had all kinds of characters from Dungeons and Dragons and different movies and things. And you wouldn't even know that they were made out of pipe cleaners until you looked at them really close, and then you could see like it was masterful detail.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah. They were like miniature size too. So, like if you were playing DD, you know, you could have like a little Negan on the board, a little Praydra. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Uh, and so I think they did decently. Yeah. So I'm I learned some things.

Selling Books At A Movie Con

SPEAKER_02 28:40

And we did sell some books. We did. It was just that it was clear that like our opener was like, hey, if people would come, I wouldn't bother people if they're just like sort of walking by glancing at our stuff because I just am not that person. But if they showed any interest in our table, I would ask them what they like to read. And the number of times that I got some equivalent of I don't read, yeah, probably 90% of the people. Murder mystery.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah. So many people that are there that it like had no interest in zombies whatsoever. They were just like, yeah, I mostly just read fantasy, like, you know, I read a lot of Harry Potter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

But some readers who were there last year who could participate in our author crawl came back. Yeah. Anna giving you a shout-out, uh, said that they absolutely love Joe Salazar's book, which is coming out, being republished under the title If We Survive the Night, go check it out, go pre-order it. It's coming out in August. Um, and was like, what do you recommend next? So they bought Waves of Undead by Rebecca Cuthrightson, and they also bought Planet Dead by Sylvester Barzi. Uh so I'm excited to hear what they think about those two books. So we had some return customers and some great conversations. You Alice had some lovely people that clearly had like read uh earlier parts of her series and were coming back for more.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yeah, Alice had a lot of return Yeah, that was cool to see where they were like, I read your book that I bought last year. I love it. What do you have to do? And Alice is like, I have six.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Four. Four, but still an impressive number in a year. Um, so it was good and it was fun selling books, but also hard because most people I learned don't read and like movies instead.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Right across the hall, the the way from us was uh a box of DVDs for five dollars each. And like people would walk by and they'd glance at us and they'd be like, Oh, look at look at those uh those covers, and then immediately look to their left and be like, oh, movies, and just go that direction. They're like, Oh, look at all these movies I can buy for five dollars.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Yeah, I mean it makes sense, it's a movie con.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

So lots of lessons learned that way. We also learned that like books that look like typical zombie books, which is people facing in the distance or looking at you, but like with an apocalyptic background, instantly recognizable. People were drawn to those. Trying to explain the other books that we had that were not as obvious and immediate took a little bit more effort because they just didn't look the way that people expected them to look, which is kind of annoying, but I guess is what it is. It's how people recognize things.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

I mean, that's something that we that we knew instinctively. Like we knew that that was the case. Most people who were in the zombie apocalypse genre know what a zombie apocalypse book looks like, but like seeing people like their eyes just like pass over something that doesn't look like a traditional zombie apocalypse survival book, um, and just go to the one that looks exactly like a zombie apocalypse book and then pick that one up.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah. And then there was one guy whose name is David, who I pretty sure went to every single indie authors table, including ours, and bought a copy of every single book. David, you are a saint, a patron saint of authors. We love you. That was incredible to witness. And I was having issues because it was busy on the final day and Wi-Fi wasn't working, I couldn't get my square to work. Then we couldn't get PayPal to work, and finally I like got his PayPal name and requested the money, and that's how I got it from him. Like he was he was like, this is happening, and just that was amazing to see.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Um, I want to see his I want to see his library. It must be incredible.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Yeah. I mean, does does he do that everywhere? Like, does he just go to conventions and find all the authors just to buy all their books? Yeah, we should have interviewed him.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

He was some because like I I mean, I guess I do have his email from PayPal, but that might be a little creepy to be like, hi, you bought some books from me today weekend. I have your email because you sent me money. Do you want to can you send a note on Tell us the story about I don't know. Tell us the story about why what inspired you to do this. I really wish we'd done that in retrospect because it's that's not a choice most people are making.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah, definitely not right now. No. Um, I would I would love to be able to just go around and just buy people's books. Like, I feel like the amount of money that we spent to get there, to stay in the Airbnb, to get the table, um, and to feed ourselves for the entire weekend. Like, I could have I could have gone to like a much more local convention and just like bought everyone's books.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Yeah, that's really true. I mean, I can tell you how much we made. Give me one second.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I don't know if I want to know.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

You don't want to know. I'm gonna tell you. Okay. Just give me one moment to do the math. We made insert drum roll.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Do I have a drum roll?

SPEAKER_02 33:38

I don't think you do.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

No.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

That's actually perfect. $232. Wow. Profit? No. That no. If we uh it's $300 for the table, it was around $500 and some odd bucks for the Airbnb. We had to get a hotel the one night because of my mental breakdown, which was I think almost $200. So we're at we're at a thousand plus food and gas. I think we easily spent like twelve hundred dollars, thirteen hundred dollars. So Living Dead weekend costs us a thousand dollars, basically, is the is the moral of the story.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

And it's it's not as bad as actually like my imaginary numbers. Yeah, or your imaginary numbers.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Wow. Well, it's I think it's um I think it was a great event, and it just wasn't the event to sell a lot of books. Yeah, and we learned a lot. I also think like authors themselves talking about their books is easier.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Um we didn't have as many conversations. Like the first year we didn't really have anything to sell except for stickers and hopefully a crown. Uh which the crown made another return because somebody bought it last year.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, and actually we saw somebody who loved the crown the year before.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

This is still for sale, and then they were like, still can't afford it.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

That's I mean, really, it was nobody needs to spend that kind of money on a crown that's gonna sit on the shelf. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

That's true. Um, but yeah, we we didn't really have like we we were non-stop conversating with people last year about zombies, about like their survival plans, about z zombie movies, zombie TV shows, their ideas about zombies, books about zombies, movies they were making about zombies. And this year, like it was all we could do just to grab somebody's attention. Like if somebody just stopped and was just like, oh yeah, that book looks cool. Sometimes that's about as far as it would go because they'd be like, Well, I gotta go see ya.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

One author, I'm not gonna name them because we haven't asked, uh, suggested to us that one way to do it is like to have your spiel and then hand them to book hand them the book to like be like read the back cover.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Because they can't leave unless they either put it down or buy it.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah. Well, every time they put it back down. And I know it's not the quality of the books, you know what I mean? Like we hand selected the authors that we invited. We sold books from every single one of them. Um, they're amazing books. It's just, I think one, harder for us to sell like people's books when people are excited about talking to the indie author themselves. We saw that by watching Alice and her amazing conversations. And two, you know, everybody we talked to was not a banner selling year. Yeah. And three, we didn't do the author crawl. I think the author crawl created a lot of conversations. That's true. Because last year we had it where you could win a grand prize by getting stamps at every single booth of all of our author friends. And if we'd done that again, I think we might have had a little more conversation. I don't know if we would have had more sales though.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Yeah, it's hard to say. Yeah. Um, what what we did have because of the author crawl last year is we had five different tables sending people from table to table, even if like if they just they I don't maybe they wouldn't have naturally congregated to us if they weren't like, I need a stamp on my card. Well, we were also the place to drop them off. Yeah. Because we could they were dropping them off at any table.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

That's right. You're right. Whenever they were done, they could drop them off.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

They mostly came back to our table to drop them off.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Um Do you think we would have been better off just interviewing

Con Layout And Vending Lessons

SPEAKER_00 37:10

people again this year? I don't know. The that's the other thing, is like I feel like definitely my energy, but our energy matched the Khan's energy, which is that we were tired and oh like we were in a different hall too. Like last year we were downstairs. We were downstairs in this like kind of cool looking place that was like darkly lit, had had like dark walls. That's where all of the the uh celebs were, so it was like just a few vendors and the celebrities. Um where we were this time was the main hall, like where they stuffed Brandon last year.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Poor Brandon.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

And uh we felt Brandon's pain this year because like it was a maze, and just there were so many people, but because there was so many things there, those people like they didn't have they didn't have time for us.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

And all of the people who you wanted to get your signatures from were along the outside. Yeah. So there wasn't a lot of reason to walk in the middle. Um so lesson learned. But I actually feel like it gave me the vending bug a little bit because we talked to our author friends, we've kept some of the books that we didn't sell, and we're gonna we're gonna sign up for some of their cons and try and sell them. Yeah. And talk more about the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Yeah. I've actually been doing research on cons and I I feel like um I feel like I'm uh I might just make a little bit of a bit on like one episode a month where I just tell everybody what cons are going on that month.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

We should have, you know who we should invite for those? Or even get maybe maybe Jacob would do like a little voiceover for us.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, I mean, I thought about that too. Like Jacob, you're the con festival expert. Jacob's a con man. You're the you're the you're the con man, you're the festivert. Um here's another interesting thing, because I so I've been making the spreadsheet of events and I've just been going to website after website that just that's listing both horror conventions, like horror fan conventions, and authorslash literary conventions. And I'm I'm just like, what's what's going on? What's going on in the con world? I don't know, um, because I don't know much about cons. And what I what I discovered is kind of interesting. Um Okay, perfect. Nothing nothing works on my on my phone. I'm trying to bring up my spreadsheet on my phone. It doesn't work. Um I can't sort anything, even though I made it a table. So I'll just go off of memory. So perfect. I'm I'm glad I spent so much time trying to find my stupid fucking screen. I totally zoned out and started scrolling the internet. So what's going on? So a week before Living Dead Weekend, we had Stoker Con in Pittsburgh. Same city, different venue, but Stoker Con's a big deal in the horror world. The Bram Stoker event. This is a literary con. This is for people who enjoy horror books. Um, they even have the Stoker, they they present the Stoker Award there, and that is like the coveted award of the horror writer. Every horror writer is like, I need to get that award. If I don't get that award, I'm a failure as a writer. Uh this is this is a con that gets more than a hundred thousand people walking through. Wow. That was a week before Living Dead Weekend. How much is that vending cost, though? I don't know. I'd have to look it up.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Um, which I do have all the links for every con, just about. I I made a spreadsheet and someday maybe I'll do something with it. Um so I was like, but what about Living Dead Weekend? It was a week later. So I just looked in Pennsylvania. I'm like, what's the deal with Pennsylvania? What's going on? And there were two other horror conventions at the same time. At the same time, in the same state. And this is just Pennsylvania. One of them was a was a film fest, and the other was a general uh horror convention that was based around um like cryptids and monsters. Well, I feel like we were at the right one for our genre. I guess, but at the same time, I don't feel like a lot of people there were too crazy about zombies.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

I want to do just general vending, like maybe we could see if we can get a spot at the um farmers market. Things like that could be fun to do.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah, I'd I'd be there, I'd be interested in that.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Because then it's like all kinds of people, and then we could just sell them on like the things that aren't zombies in the book. You want some like you want some complicated romance?

unknown 41:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Waves of undead. You want a fever psychedelic dream of nonlinear what is time, beautiful writing and beautiful visuals, pink zombie rose. You want a western with a mystery, but also comedy, Path of the Pale Rider.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah. Um, but I've I've been I've been looking at cons. There's a few of them that I found really interesting. There's this one called Dead of Winter that takes place in February. Uh I don't have the date for next year, but um uh takes place in Connecticut, so this is like a couple hours drive for us. We could just go there for a day. Um the the venue is small-ish. Uh it's in a theater, and half of the theater is the event space, so there's people set up with tables, and it looks like it's got plenty of walking room, place for pla room to breathe, and then the other half is seating for the film festival that's happening. And it has cool lighting, it's inside of this like nice um theater building. Like it's got good vibes. And there's also like uh a cosplay contest. And I'm like, that would be fun.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

That would be like that, seems like the place where people want to be.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

Yeah, we'll have to find some for this fall. I think we should do some like winter markets for Christmas shopping because people like to give get like to give books. It's good practice for when you have your book to sell. But let's get back to Living Dead weekend.

Russo And Iconic Dawn Zombies

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Yeah. John A. Russo, highlight.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Yeah. Uh for you know, I know who John Russo is, but you know, for uh explain it for other people who don't know. The director of Knight of the Living Dead, the creator.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Well, very proud to tell us. Co-creator, because George Romero was the director. Okay, my apologies. Co-creator of Knight of the Living Dead doesn't get as much cred, I think, as George A. Romero, but he he was very clear in telling us that he is the creator of the ghoul, which is now called the zombie, the idea of uh not just an undead being, but an undead being that eats people.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Yeah. He said very specifically, like zombies, um like the things that are in Knight of the Living Dead aren't zombies because zombies just kind of like walk around. They're they're brain dead. Um, but a ghoul eats human flesh.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah. So we talked to him a lot. We got pictures with him. He had a book about how much he hates Trump. I forget what it was called. I think it's called Trump. We learned like he's like a prolific author. Uh he has a documentary about his life that we purchased and are gonna watch. And um, we gave him my MATA, grandmata sticker, which is a MAGA zombie grandma who has a t-shirt that says um grandma's juice with an image of wine, a wine cup, and uh smoking a cigarette smoking a cigarette while well holding a cigarette because she's a zombie now. Right and um wearing a hat that says make America Dead Again. He liked it. He was like, America's already dead, and I was like, I know. It's just you know it's play on play on the phrase. Uh so we have a lovely chat with him, got some cool things. Um we also got to meet the Hare Krishna zombie. Yeah, which is my favorite zombie and also one that I've drawn um as a little chibi zombie.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Yeah. And you know, maybe this is my own personal opinion, but I think Hare Krishna zombie is the the the most iconic zombie in Dawn of the Dead.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Oh my god, of course he is. He's the most distinct. Yeah. His name's Mike Christopher in real life. And apparently the story goes is that he was in a band that George Romero liked. The reason why he got the Hare Krishna role was because he was bald. And he wears round glasses. To this day, he was wearing round glasses.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

The round glasses are so distinctive, yeah. Like like that, like Hare Krishna's came in all shapes and sizes, but they did have all shaved heads. Um, glasses weren't necessary, but it the glasses definitely did tell a story. Like you look, like I even as a kid, I remember looking at the Hare Krishna zombie. Um, and I'm like, there that zombie's different. It's wearing glasses. Um, I didn't have a whole lot of uh experiences with Hare Krishna,'cause I knew what they were because I I I guess they just like they were still culturally relevant in the United States when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

I didn't know, like I think I was like, who is this person? I had to look up what a Hare Krishna was after watching Dawn of the Dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

And also I uh I I told I told him I told him my how when I was when I was a kid and I was first watching Dawn of the Dead, I somehow got it in my head, like as a fact, as if somebody had told me this, that the reason that the Hare Krishna zombie found the backstore room was because he was smarter than the other zombies. Because he wore glasses. Because he wore glasses. Um and then I also shared, I don't know how I thought that or thought it was fact, um, but I had been telling people for decades that that was the reason. And uh and he's he said, yeah, I hadn't heard that one.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Well, yeah, I was in I was thinking about it more in like how everyone knows Dawn of the Dead is a metaphor for consumerism, and like people are going back to the mall, and they're all you know, shopping zombies basically, and like Hare Krishna is sort of the counterculture to that, but he's kind of the Hare Krishna is sort of shopping for souls in the mall.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Yeah, it's true, yeah. Um something I like I thought of much later, and I I would have asked uh while we were there, while we had him as a captive audience, uh, is I wonder if because most of the zombies that come that are at the mall came there after they became zombies. They came back to the mall because it was comfortable and familiar. But was Hare Krishna already there, or did Hare Krishna come back? They also come back to the mall. How many people how many people were at the mall during the outbreak and how many just showed up? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Well, we see a bunch show up in the movie. We do. Um, yeah, we won't we don't know what Hare Krishna, but Hare Krishna was clearly more interested in getting people than products.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Uh, but definitely a classic zombie. So that was very cool to meet him because who knows when we'll meet him again. And also I learned that Johnny Russo is 87 years old. Yeah. So like the he's alive. We got to meet him. That's really cool. Hare Krishna zombie is probably close in age. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Um, it is kind of why like it No, he's not. Sorry. He's way younger than John A. Russo. I'm gonna look it up, but how much is weight? How much is weight? I'm gonna look it up how old he is. Hold on. He had his 73rd birthday two months ago. So he is 15 years younger.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

That's that's significant. It is, it is significant. Um but it's a spring chicken comparatively. It's it's it is just odd, you know, seeing like because there's so many there's so many people that show up to this event that are that were part of the movie. Like Wooly, the at the beginning of of Dawn of the Dead, there's the cop that goes nuts, like the racist cop from Alabama that just starts kicking in doors and blowing off heads. Wooly. Um he was he was right next to us. He was right across right across the aisle.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Yeah, everybody, I mean there is kind of a thing where not only is the mall ending, but people are getting older. Yeah. Like how much longer will this happen? And then here is the tr the great tragedy of this weekend.

Tina Romero Regrets And Bootlegs

SPEAKER_02 49:13

We never went to Hall B. It looked crazy. There was, it was every time we had a minute to sneak away, talk to other people, like look at other things, it looked like an impossibility to even get in. But I now know why Tina Romero was there, Jorge Romero's daughter, who made my favorite 2025 movie, Queens of the Dead. I saw a picture from somebody else who got her fucking signature in a picture with her. And I am deeply jealous. I went on Tina's website and I filled their contact form, and I was like, please, can I have a poster? Well, how much money do you want? I didn't say that, but like Navier Price. I'll pay a bit. Where they filmed Queens of the Dead, the Bushwick Warehouse, could be a cool event venue.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

For an event like this in like the new era. But I don't know. I'm just, I just cannot fucking believe that I didn't see Tina Romero and then I didn't know that she was there. Like that was really upsetting. Even though I would have been extremely awkward, because if it's somebody that I really admire I and they're famous, it makes me I feel really uncomfortable and unable to converse. But at least I could have gotten a poster because the only merch that she has for Queens of the Dead is t-shirts, and like they're great, but I want a poster. That's specifically what I want. And I want a DVD. Neither of those things exist on the internet. I guarantee they did at the event. I guarantee fucking tea they did. At least a poster.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Yeah. It's hard. It's it's hard to know if like DVDs even exist of things anymore. Um which is which is why I condone piracy. But not of an indie thing like that. Right. Buy it first, then pirate it if there's no physical copy. But um actually what's kind of funny, uh Mark Syanot, who who made the glass coffin, was was um bootlegging his own movie because there aren't physical copies of the movie yet, and he's they're they're still in in talk. So like every every version was just was was just a movie that he made to bring to the convention. So uh collector's item, collector's collector's bootleg? I thought that was really funny. Um the person who made the movie is bootlegging their own movie.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

It's pretty great. Yeah. Somebody got someone's gotta do that. Yeah. It's their movie. I want to see it. I'm glad because I can't go to their the film festival.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Uh anything else that we want to share?

Friendship Plus Podcast Roadmap

SPEAKER_02 51:40

I think, you know, the power of friendship. Yeah. We had that was definitely always a highlight is spending time with our friends in person. Brandon Staraki, what a quality guy. Also, Brandon's dad, whose name I never remember. He's just Brandon's dad. I heard him talk once and I was like, whoa, you are the same voice. Same voice. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it was it's really cute because his dad was there last year with him as like his co-vendor. It's just adorable. No offense, mom and dad, if you're listening, which I know you're not, but like I don't want to do that with you. That sounds like a terrible time.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

It does. Yeah. You're the only person I want to share a vendor table with Leah. I don't think that's true.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

I think you'd share it with any one of our zombesti authors. Yeah, probably. Yeah, it's okay. But you're the person I want to show. Well, I would be okay with it. You know, I was asked last night, I had some friends over, and they were like, So, is there a world where Dan would take on the podcast without you? What's your answer to that, Dan? No. Yeah. So I'm stuck for life.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

I mean, if you really didn't want to do it, um, then uh, you know, we'd have to figure out a way.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

Oh, I think I do want to do it. Just recently, there's been a lot of I was talking with my friends about how the number of white men, specifically cis white heteromen, who have been obnoxious. Um not naming any specifics, but it just happens a lot. And like usually there's like there's like every once in a while a really entitled person who thinks they should come on our podcast. And when I say no in the nicest way possible, because we're only two people and I we don't have time to interview everybody, and also we only interview zombie authors who don't use AI. Like we have a very narrow niche.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

And the yeah, like that kind of ruins it for me a little bit. It's tiring. That on top of just being really busy makes it hard to have the creative space. But I'm hopeful that's gonna change. And I do love talking to you, and I love chatting with all of you folks. Um so that's what makes it worth it. Yeah. Last but not least, there was a tornado in Vermont this week, and it hit down 30 minutes from us and tore up a bunch of trees, ruined somebody's house.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

But we didn't die. Um, but just in case you weren't sure, climate change is not real. And we really need to drill oil on American soil because apparently we we can't be friends with Iran.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Um, the oil will make the tornadoes go away. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

Yeah. And as you said, where we did, we then we can go hide down there when we've completely trashed the planet.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Yeah. All those all those um empty oil holes, uh, when the tornadoes come for us, we can just hide in those holes. Let's talk about what's next for the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

Do you know what's next for the podcast? I don't. Well, next episode is going to be a belated book club read episode for Feed by Mira Grant, book one in the News Flesh series. Super delayed because we were sick. We didn't get a chance to talk to our zombie's about it, and then we had to get ready for Living Dead weekend. So doing that next week. And then we need to pick a book for our next book club read. I think we might take a bit of a summer pause. So maybe pick a book, but not have the episode come out or the conversation come out until the fall.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

That's yeah, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Yeah. Um, because people are busy, including us. We've got a lot of summer plans.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

But we do also have two interviews coming up. Um, one of them coming out on August 2nd is by TJ Payne, Intercepts. Oh, yeah. Which is an excellent book.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

We were reading that in the car.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

Yeah, we listened to it on the drive home. It really made the drive home uh enjoyable. It it's if you haven't read it, it's really, really good. I think it definitely fits in the zombie category, but an untraditional zombie from what you typically expect. But it kept me kept me captivated from start to finish, which sometimes I can zone out with audiobooks, but this was too good. That says a lot about the quality of the book.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yeah, that's also true. It's I mean, and we listened to it for like nine straight hours.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

Yeah. And then we have on July 19th, we're going to be talking to Rob Dela, uh Rob De La Chevautière, who is the author of Tallows Her Body, a friend of Naila King's, and his latest upcoming book, it's coming out on August 25th, The 12th House. The the cover art is so beautiful. It's um a black woman holding the planet, and her eyes are covered with what looks like maybe um cowrie shells. And she's like, there's like lightning coming down into her, and she's wearing this like flowing, gorgeous orange dress. It's really cool looking. This is also a non-traditional zombie book. I'm gonna just read the book description for you. I uh we got an advanced copy, so I'm gonna be reading it before we interview Rob. Uh says the vengeful spirit of an unborn child draws her father from the bite of Biafra onto a slave ship bound for the harshly colonized Caribbean island of Dominica in this lush historical novel infused with magical realism and rooted in West African mythology. Uh, and then it says, Etta is an obanji, an unborn soul trapped in a cycle of conception and death in the wombs of one family. A gifted siren in the twelfth house of the zodiac, the house of secrets of dreams and of her death. Her voice unleashes ethereal songs that consume listeners with fear. Her desperate desire to live compels her father, Bako, it might be Bako or Bako, we'll have to ask Rob, into the hands of his captors of the coast of 18th century Benin, and carries him on a harrowing journey across the Atlantic to enslavement on a sugar cane plantation in Dominica. Bako's defiant spirit and Etta's fervent wish to be born soon lead him to escape into the mountains. There he has a fateful encounter with the Kalinaga woman named Mary, who will ensure Etta's birth into the mortal world. But the child Etta bears physical scars of her many spiritual deaths, bringing her father to suspect the truth of his daughter's origins. As the landowners and tradesmen who enslave Etta's people feel her wrath and inflame rebellion, Baco fears it is the rebellion within which is the gravest. That's getting a lot of praise out there from pre-readers. Um excited to read this one and get to chat. Excited to read this one and get to chat with Rob.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

And then we'll be chatting coming out in late August with Joe Salazar about her now Trod published book, If We Survive the Night. So those are those are the ones that are coming up. If you haven't read them, go check them out. You can pre-order uh The 12th House and you can pre-order If We Survive the Night right now. TJ Payne's Intercepts is available anywhere you can get books. It's also an audiobook. Highly recommend.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

Yeah.

What We Read After The Con

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Um, I've been reading a book while I've been uh cutting down trees and mowing lawns. Really? What are you in reading? Um it was it's called Rain um by Sean Harbinger. Um and I I liked it because it was very simplistic. It starts off with some people uh camping in the Welsh Welsh mountains. They're going hiking in the Welsh Mountains. The people of my people. Uh zombie outbreak occurs. Um and then and uh and I liked it because it was like a very simple take on the zombie outbreak story, uh, where it's just a group of friends that are just uh you know trying to survive. And there's there's a there's somebody who's a non-believer. A non-believer in what? Doesn't think that is happening. Oh wow. So they're in denial. Okay. Yeah. Um but yeah, I think it was pretty good. Uh kept it kept me engaged while I was mowing the lawn.

SPEAKER_02 58:58

Yeah, Dan's been hyper productive since you got home from Living Dead weekend. I thought you'd be more tired, but you've been on fire.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Exhausted.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Me too. We got up for our our breakfast, diner time. We haven't done that in a few weeks again because we've been too busy and it was mission impossible for me to get out of bed. But we did it. We did it. We did it, and we did this episode. Hi, everybody. Hi. I hope that whatever is going on in your world, that your soul is still in your body and you're not undead, unless you want to be, or our Ollie eats brains, in which case that is your natural state of being, and we love you anyways.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Yeah, Ollie is natural zombie.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Yep, 100% natural.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Also, like an Eeyore-esque donkey.

SPEAKER_02 59:37

Yeah, an Eeyore zombie. Yeah. An Olior zombie.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Yeah. That's exactly what it's like. Oli or Ollie is.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Yeah. Um, but yeah,

Patreon Plans And The Ruined Internet

SPEAKER_02 59:45

thanks everybody for listening. You can find us in all the places, specifically Patreon. We haven't been very active on there because time, what is it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Um, but all the stated things. Yeah, but honestly, like this episode.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

Yeah, Instagram, meta, not loving it, not on it a lot, not on Facebook a lot. Patreon is a place where we're gonna be the most present because anyone we're interacting with on Facebook or Instagram are folks that are already listening for the most part. And um, we really want to build a community that is separate from the Zuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:18

And the ways that he sucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

Yeah. Uh but unfortunately that is how we reach new people. Um, so gotta do guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

I don't know. We talked with some authors at the event, and it was like social media algorithms don't really aren't really serving us anymore, and maybe the way to do this actually is in-person events.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Is social media is a new newspaper? My God. Find out more at 11 on the local news, which is what we watch now because uh 24-hour news networks are owned by the billionaires, and they uh don't have an interest in telling the truth.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

Uh, but anyways, yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

I'm old enough to say the internet is ruined.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:00

The youngins don't understand how great it was in 1998. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

That's why I'm excited about Mesh Tastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

New internet.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

New internet. Let's do it. Just build a new one. Everybody listen to tech and the zombie apocalypse, or I forget what it's called.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:13

Tech Apocalypse Tech, I think is what we called it. Yeah, and then the one right after where I continue talking about it. More apocalypse tech. Because I was in a uh a fugue state. A whole, yeah. Uh still doing it. In fact, I tried to download Wikipedia for my uh for my um internet in a buck server and uh destroyed a flash drive last night. Oh no. Yeah, it does not work anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:41

That's too bad, but also I feel the need to cr crfuffle. State is a psychiatric state where an individual experiences sudden reversible amnesia regarding their personal identity. So never mind. No, that's accurate. That's what happened to you. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Um, anyways, thanks everybody for listening.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Don't die. We love you. Stay alive or something. Um I don't know what we say anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

Stay alive. Um

Cheese Caves Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

don't don't murder billionaires. That's bad. And but also don't help them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

Yeah. And in the event of um a worldwide uh cataclysmic event where society ends, we're all meeting at the cheese caves in Missouri. That's right. We'll see you there. We're gonna eat cheese. Ew. It isn't you, but you know what? They there are there's so much cheese.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

Do you know how constipated we would be if that was our only source of food? I'm trying to end this episode. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye. It would be very constipating.