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Zombie Punk, A Divine Comedy

Rebecca Migdal writes,

You–you want me to tell the story behind Zombie Punk? At the very thought, an ancient terror rises up in me once more.

z1

It's 1997, and I'm at a New Year's Eve party at Courtney's house. My friend, the comic book artist Dame Darcy, introduces me to Courtney, who smiles at me with come-hither sweetness, just like that girl down the street used to do when I was a kid. Brooke, who always wanted to play dirty Barbie games. She even had the psychedelic pink plastic van.

I say, "Hi Courtney, so nice to meet you. I uh, thought you'd want to see this comic that I did about you and your late husband. It's just the first installment, really, heh heh, of a fantasy story about an afterlife limbo where famous people get, like, trapped by notoriety…"

"Lemme see that," Courtney says, and grabs the comic out of my hands.

"It draws on the classical philosophy of Euhemerism, proposing that mortal heroes become gods, by being worshipped after death…" I babble.

z2

"It's amazing," Darcy says, looking at me warily for a second while pointing her perfect nose at the coffered ceiling. "Some of these drawings, they look so much like you guys, it's spooky!"

I stand there wondering if I should tell Courtney about all the dreams I've been having about Kurt, night after night, the ones where he begs me to tell his story and free him from the chains of malice, to tell the world the truth about his life, and to defend his widow from the infamy of false accusations. Definitely not the other Kurt dreams, though, the ones where I discover all those wonderful things I never knew about my clitoris. Courtney would not be very interested in those details, I suspect.

Courtney has leafed rapidly through the pages of the comic, pages that document every throbbing beat of her very public, ill-fated romance with the late grunge icon. I have told the story largely in the couple's own words, with heartfelt compassion, an edgy look, and plenty of irony and wit. If a friend of a friend of Dante's, one of the few people who could actually get all his jokes, made a behind-the-scenes comic book about the writing of The Inferno, it would be like this.

On the last page a particularly moving, gender-bending love scene between Courtney and her beloved culminates in transcendent, ah, godhead.

"How…DARE…you!" is the last thing I hear before I find myself on the floor with a black eye and/or a broken and bleeding nose. We must depart in haste, and Darcy never speaks to me again, blaming me and my impudent comic for ruining her relationship with Courtney.

This fearsome scenario never happened. But it could have, trust me, if I wasn't such a dang chicken, if I hadn't wimped out of going to that party. If I hadn't let myself be intimidated by Courtney's reputation for engaging in fisticuffs. Thank goodness I'm such a coward!

Instead, I sent a copy of the comic to her publicist, then phoned.

"I'm not even going to show her this," he said. "But be careful. This looks exactly like them. And their images are trademarked."

That was when I realized how badly I was blowing it. This insight proved to be correct. My agent sure was pissed off when I told him about the conversation with Courtney's publicist.

"Why did you DO that?" he demanded.

Arrgh. In trying to do the right thing, I'd only shown my hand, like an idiot. So… I decided to withdraw the comic from publication.

After that, the folks at the record company that had wanted to publish the comic as a part of the publicity for our upcoming album stopped returning our calls.

Hey, you and I know I did nothing illegal or unethical in creating that comic book. It was my personal expression, I was a qualified commentator if there ever was one, and besides, parodies of public figures are fully protected by free speech laws, at least in the US.

But, as a penniless young artist and single mom, (well, OK, I was married to a musician, but that's essentially the same thing,) how could I have defended myself if I were sued? Even if I were confident that I would ultimately have won, my career would've been over before it ever got off the ground.

Which is kind of how it happened anyway. The book deal, the record deal, the band and the marriage, all evaporated within a year, and I ended up designing novelty underwear for thirteen bucks an hour.

Yup, I guess I must not have much of a killer instinct. But what I lack in cojones, I make up for in stick-to-itiveness. Twenty years later, I'm still working on that darn book. It's an epic novel series now, one that takes place in a rich and fabulous fictional world, and the main character based on a legendary suicidal rockstar with gender dysphoria, has evolved into my own unique creation: Luke Mandrake, the Zombie Punk.

But, the original Zombie Punk #1 has been waiting all this time to rise up from the dead. These days it's a piece of history, my unauthorized underground comic book biography of Kurt and Courtney. With Zombies.

That's why I'm making Zombie Punk #1 available as a very limited edition, hand bound artist book. You can pre-order your copy on my Kickstarter campaign, which by the way exists solely to launch an adult puppet show, based on my upcoming novel, Zombie Punk.

z3

This is the Zombie Luke Mandrake puppet I'm working on now. He's almost finished.

So better grab one of these highly collectible comics, while the gettin's good! If I reach halfway to my goal by Monday (that's $1750) I'll post a special thank-you video for Bleeding Cool readers: Zombie Luke Mandrake dancing and singing Polly to his Vulture. And it doesn't get much better than that!

Cheers, Rebecca Migdal

LINKS

Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458333454/zombie-punk

Comic art:

http://www.rlmigdal.com

http://www.zombiepunk.com

Puppetry:

http://www.yippeeskippy.com

http://www.goddammerung.com


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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