The Zombienose Collection

Zombienose's first foray into a Seuss-like world of dark fantasy is Collision Course Goad

Today’s audiences like their fairy tales to follow a certain formula: hero saves damsel and they live happily ever after. But anyone who has ever read some of the original source material for these stories knows that the endings weren’t always so optimistic.

By Jonathan Williams

One contemporary creator with a nose for those older traditions is Zombienose, a mysterious character responsible for a series of books known as The Zombienose Collection. According to legend, Zombienose's name was "derived from cryptic symbols found in ancient scrolls uncovered from excavations conducted in the late 1800s." However, the man himself has another explanation for his moniker.

"It's also been my email address for a long time and it's easy for people to remember because it's a funny name," he says in a phone interview. "Dr. Seuss wasn’t the guy's real name and I'm doing a gothic Dr. Seuss-type story and book series, which is similar in a way."

Also citing Edward Gorey and Al Columbia as influences, Zombienose's first foray into a Seuss-like world of dark fantasy is Collision Course Goad, a story about a woman who becomes cursed to a life of helpless misery after getting a splinter from a witch's broom. And as is the case with all of the tales he tells, this story was inspired by real events in Zombienose's life.

"My uncle got a splinter in his finger and he couldn't get it out," says the elusive author. "He was so pissed off about it, he said, ‘You should write a story about someone who gets a splinter and ends up turning into a tree.' So that's what I did."

As has become a signature of sorts for Zombienose, Collision Course Goad does not end with a valiant prince awakening a slumbering princess. In fact, "there are no happy endings" has become a slogan for his stories, which always take a tragic twist in the end. His second book, Brooding Dead Hearts, is a very Greek-like tale of twin sisters abandoned at birth and raised under the rottenest of circumstances. Through poetic rhyme and macabre meter, as well as dreadful drawings, Zombienose offers an even more twisted tragedy, in which the very thing that makes one sister happy brings the other her most nightmarish misery. A bit of a wretched Renaissance man (or some such creature), Zombienose includes a read-along CD with each of his books on which he composes and performs a soundtrack while a creepy girl narrates the story.

"The father of the creepy girl from the first book didn't want her to do the second one," says Zombienose. "She does the third one and she's a great little actress. Her name is Emaliegh. Caroline Macey did the second book. She's actually a friend of a friend, but she's an actress that has been in mostly TV shows. I include a CD with the books, basically just to make them a little more of a novelty and more interesting," he says. "Each story has its own songs and I edit all the sound effects. I play most of the stuff on the CDs on electric piano. I've had some help with the chanting parts where I need girls voices because obviously I can't do that."

Also a painter and sculptor, Zombienose's work has appeared at California galleries such as Copra Nason and the Hive Gallery & Studios and at "October Shadows: A Celebration of Halloween in Art" alongside dozens of other artists like Gris Grimly and Bernie Wrightson. And even when his work is displayed in a gallery rather than an illustrated book, it still all exists in the same Zombienose realm.

"I travel around and these are things that have happened in my little world," he says. "The books were the first projects I was doing and they have a whimsical and dark atmosphere to them. Then I started doing these art shows and art exhibitions. It's all its own little world and imaginative dimension. Some of the characters have these big black eyes and some of them have white, offset eyes."

The latest book in his collection is Sun Orphan, a story of a girl who unwittingly brings both feast and famine to her town, as well as a Bible-like butterfly plague. The overly morose themes and utterly hopeless conclusion are just as heavy as the first two books. Zombienose has no shortage of equally gloomy stories. He's already finished a fourth book, Give, about a teddy bear that eats children and is in the beginning stages of making a 3D animated film based on characters from his paintings and sculptures.  zombienose.com     icecatbooks.com

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