V

VAMPIRES AND ZOMBIES. While vampires and zombies have been common stock for

fi lms and books for much of the 20th century, their presence in comic books has not
been consistent due to censorship practices in the mid-1950s. In the early comic indus-
try of the 1920s and 1930s, comics steered clear of tales involving vampires, zombies
and most horror motifs. Horror comics arose in the 1940s and with them also came an
abundance of stories presenting vampires and zombies.
Vampires and zombies have been used in many ways throughout history to
represent fears and anxieties about death; particularly the disruption of a peaceful
transition into some sort of afterlife. However, these undead creatures are also used
to reveal human fear of fates worse than death. Common elements include returning
from the dead, biting or bodily fl uid exchange as a means of infecting, and signifi cant
violence to permanently kill the creature (stake through the hearts for vampires and
blunt trauma to the head or decapitation for zombies). Vampires are known to have
a range of supernatural powers including fl ight, body transformation, telepathy, and
super-strength; while zombies rarely have any powers, they typically have a maniacal
appetite for human fl esh. Both are typically depicted as gaunt and pale fi gures with
vampires weakened or killed by sunlight but often appearing relatively normal with the
exception of protruding fangs.
Zombies are often reanimated in a posthumous state, rotting fl esh, disheveled
appearance and all. Most early zombies narratives (though few contemporary ones)
are connected with typically non-Western spiritual beliefs, particularly from Afri-
can and Caribbean cultures in the form of Voodoo. Zombies can also be singularly
reanimated corpses seeking revenge for personal injustices or cursed begotten crea-
tures. However in the last few decades, zombies have largely represented a plague of