


How soon is now? "Blog Archive"

Zombies and Vampires and Ninjas and Pirates
25 Jul 2010
by Rick
It's tough to kill the vampire...genre
I was noodling on Vampires the other day, but also lumped Zombies, Pirates and Ninjas
in the mix. These archetypes seem different to me than other 'trends'. Surely the
Vampire was dead after the spoof, "Love at First Bite " in 1979. But then the Anne Rice -led revival brought it
back (technically the 1st  book, Interview with the
Vampire ,  was published in 1976, but didn't gain widespread popularity until
later). Then it jumped the shark with the Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt movie (based on the Anne Rice novel) in 1994. But
bubbling below the surface was Blade and other genre flicks, then Twilight hit and now vampires are hot. 
 Surely Ninjas were done with horrible movies like American Ninja (1985) or with
comedies starring Chris Farley ( Beverly Hills Ninja , 1997), and yet Ninja has become a replacement word for
'expert' to the point where it's almost accepted parlance: A twellow search for
'ninja' turned up more than 7,000 Twitter accounts using the term in their
profiles.   Ninja Warrior is one of the
most popular shows on G4. 
We can put Pirates away now after the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean flick, right? No, actually, if we've learned
anything it's that genre memes just go back underground ( Pirates for adults [NSFW]You get
the point0. These characters are like Zombies (pun intended), they just keep coming
back to life.
So it's not just a matter of knowing when to jump off the Vampire merry-go-round,
it's knowing when (and where) to jump back on. If you jumped off Vampires would you
have known to jump back on in time to publish Twilight? Fourteen literary agents
rejected it before Stephenie Meyer got a deal.  If you were off Zombies would you
have gotten back on it time to publish NY Times bestseller Pride & Prejudice and Zombies ? I don't think you can "get off" any
of these, you have to triangulate your decision across several nodes of popular
culture, a triangulation that has to revolve around the audience (young adult --
Twilght. mature -- True Blood) and sub-genre (comedy, horror, sci-fi...) and then the
actual quality of the content. So what sort of matrix board do you have to create to
know that a NC-17 comedy horror Zombie video game will work, but a PG-13 young adult
time-travelling Vampire TV show won't? You can't.  All you can do is hope you bat
.300 and that when you fail, you fail
fast .
Ahh, the classics.
If you broaden your scope a bit, I think it would be difficult to find a time over
the last 40 years or so when any of these four archetypes didn't have a level of
bubbling popularity via books, comic books, tv, movies, video games, music. If all
you're looking at is 1 or 2 content categories maybe it looks like they're dead, but
they may be flourishing elsewhere, and like a virus they're just waiting for a new
host to carry them to the mainstream. Publishers, producers, editors, TV
execs, they all have to calibrate their decisions based on so many factors, and yet
even with access to sophisticated data it often comes down to human factors. A gut
instinct that something is going to work. Somebody at AMC is greenlighting The Walking Dead based partly on historical evidence that says people like
Zombies, but also partly on the notion that this particular iteration will have a new
twist that will bring new people into the (zombie and
AMC) tent . Personally, I'm waiting for someone to make Pirate Zombies v. Ninja
Vampires. Hey, if they can make Aliens and Cowboys , anything is possible.
This post was inspired by a recent post by Grant
McCracken . Make sure you read that one too.



3 Comments

Matthew Duhan says: July 26, 2010 at 5:13 pm
I don't know about Pirate Zombies v. Ninja Vampires, but there is a game where you
can play to become Zombies, Ninjas, Pirates, and Mad Scientists. Zombie Ninja
Pirates, by Gozer Games, is a quick 20-30 minute card game for 2-6 players. You
can find more information on our website.

We do have an expansion planned, which will add Vampires (among other Types) to
the mix. There will be more info about that coming soon.




Jewell Bardwell says: July 30, 2010 at 4:06 am
Incredibly effectively performed without a doubt.




Estefana Sjerven says: September 16, 2010 at 8:03 pm

I like twilight! I could sit and watch all day long if I didn't have school..or
life to stay me from doing it! lol Wonderful Simply Superb!







