Amy Reads the Week (of March 30th, 2008)

It has been a week of horror, Gentle Reader, both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Academically, I'm drowning, drowning, drowning, and pop culturally, I'm seeing The End Of The World. That is to say, I finished through volume 7 of The Walking Dead, and Mr. Reads and I watched Stephen King's The Mist.

As I have confessed to you before, Most Constant of Readers, I have a weakness for the Zombie-geddon, the Apocalypse (we've all been there, no?), the low-budget and high-budget horror movie and book. A decade ago, when This Humble Author wore a lot of flowy dark garments and wrote a plethora of bad poetry, I was inclined toward the Vampire Story. Now, some ten-odd years later, I find myself fascinated by the Zombie.

Not, of course, the Zombie itself, because as far as monsters go, it is a rather shambling shuffling travesty at that. No, it is the Zombie Tale, because it always, always has to do with the Death of the Living rather than the Living Dead. So, too, do Apocalypse Tales, like the cinematic version of Mr. King's novella, have to do more with the scariness, the awfulness, of Us. We are always the scarier monster, are we not? And when things get bad, we get So Much Worse.

Ultimately, I found The Mist to be an Utter Failure. The last five minutes betrayed the ninety before, and there were Serious Problems throughout. I have not read Mr. King's novella, but Mr. Reads has, and he assures me that, as in most things, the book vastly outweighs the movie.

But so many items in my pop culture lately deal with The End Of The World, and perhaps I am drawn to these things because I am reaching The End Of My Student Life. Yes, that is right, Friends. This Humble Author plans to defend her dissertation in the next few months and graduate, Ph.D. in hand, come August. Is it no wonder, then, that over the past few months, I have found myself drawn (or re-drawn) to things like Stephen King's The Mist, Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, Steve Niles's 30 Days of Night, Max Brooks's World War Z, Brian K. Vaughan's Y the Last Man, and even more symbolic EndDays Tales, like Joss Whedon's Angel and Buffy continuations, Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility, Grant Morrison's All Star Superman? Astonishing X-Men, too, recalls The End Of The World, as does the recently ended television show Jericho.

Any suggestions, Friends, on Tales of the EndDays?

To counter all of this death, to make the world more rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! (gratitude, Ms. Bishop), I have just replanted all of our plants, including the peppers, rosemary, mint, and tomatoes we bought last weekend. Let us hope I can bring our Cuban Oregano back to life, Gentle Reader, because I truly feel guilty over its demise!