Welcome to Fort Myers, Florida, where the DEAD WALK!
This last Saturday night was Zombicon 2008, which is a fun/charity event. It is a canned food and blood drive, and this was its second year in Fort Myers.
The interesting thing about this area is that George Romero filmed part of Day of the Dead (the original) on Sanibel Island. Therefore, Lee County already has a rich zombie history. My husband and quite a few of his friends were extras in the movie, and they have many funny stories about the filming process. Apparently, in an interview with Romero regarding Day of the Dead, he mentioned that filming in this area was the hardest, because the actors were having so much fun, and in turn, more celluloid was wasted on Sanibel than other locations. That is definitely not a direct quote, but it’s the general idea.
Here is Roger (left) with a friend in his zombie makeup from way back when.
We went to Zombicon 2007, but we didn’t make ourselves up as zombies. In the Dark Arts show at Space 39 was a mixed media artwork by Tim Smith featuring an image of Roger from way back when, which now hangs in our front hallway. We decided then that we would definitely involve ourselves for 2008. We did, and in ways we might not have expected; Roger is in possession of quite a few photos taken on-set, and I was asked to donate my time and design a promotional newspaper based on a prop from the original Day of the Dead (which of course Roger had in his files). So the Zombicon crew had a lot to work with, and a designer who was happy to provide a newspaper for the event.
The original, which was signed by George Romero:
And my interpretation for Zombicon 2008:
We had a great time, and it was a great turnout. Our makeup was also a lot of fun, I tried to recreate Roger’s as best as I could! But this time we took out his glass eye for extra disgusting fun.
