Creating horror: Businessman, author brings deadly zombie tales to life in his books

Published 4:56 pm Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The zombie apocalypse might not have happened yet, but judging by the undead’s prevalence in popular media, you’d be hard pressed to know this.

Everywhere you look these days – comics, novels, movies and television – zombies are evident, shuffling across the landscape in search of brains, threatening humanity.

Last weekend the shambling horde descended on the SeaTac Hilton for ZomBcon, an annual zombie convention featuring a who’s who of horror actors, authors, moviemakers and fans.

Among those in attendance was Auburn native Chuck Messinger, 38, owner of comic book shop Comic Evolution and co-founder of Creator’s Edge Press, a graphic novel publisher that focuses on horror genre novels.

In addition to his business duties, Messinger finds time to write graphic novels, including zombie tales “Breakfast with Rob” and “Cauliflower for Al Jordan.”

Growing up, Messinger wasn’t like other kids.

While most of the children in the neighborhood were outside doing kid things, Messinger was often inside his mother’s house on D Street in Auburn, getting his horror fix.

“When all the other kids were outside playing, Chuck was on the couch with a Stephen King book,” said Messinger’s mom, Vicki Stiltner.

For Messinger, the classic horror stories of authors like King, John Saul, Jonathan Mayberry and H.P. Lovecraft, fired up his imagination, fueling a desire to create his own horror tales.

“I frequented Comstock’s (bookstore) pretty much daily throughout the summer,” Messinger said. “I’d say he was the guy who supplied me with more reading material than anybody else on the planet. Anytime I could get my hands on a used paperback, anything affiliated with the horror or sci-fi genres, I was all over it.”

By the time he was 14, Messinger’s attention had broadened to comic books.

“I was a late bloomer,” he said.

He made up for lost time once he picked up his first comic, Alpha Flight No. 10.

“I fell in love with them,” he said.

Although he soon threw himself into collecting comics, eventually acquiring a big enough stash to quit his job in hotel management and open Comic Evolution in Puyallup in 2007, horror remained his first love.

Impact movie

One night while perusing TV channels, Messinger stumbled upon a movie that would forever alter the way he looked on horror – George A. Romero’s 1968 zombie classic, “Night of the Living Dead.”

“It’s still my favorite, because it felt real,” he said. “Trapped in a house with shambling hordes. Romero really is the king when it comes to zombies. Every movie of his I’ve seen takes a different group of people and puts them in that same ‘what would you do?’ scenario.”

According to Messinger, the realness of the zombie genre, the possibility that “hey, this could happen,” is the key to the current popularity.

“Coming from my standpoint, the zombie thing is more realistic,” he said. “It’s something that could actually happen, a viral outbreak. It goes back to the days of paranoia over nuclear fallout and radiation. The zombie thing seems a little more palatable to me than somebody turning into a wolf or a bloodsucking vampire. Zombies are just an extension of humanity. And there are just thousands of ways people have translated it.”

For Messinger, his zombie tales are translated through a filter that relies heavily on humor.

After forming Creator’s Edge Press with cohorts Travis Bundy, Josh Cantrell and Shawn Gates, he published “Breakfast for Rob” and “Cauliflower for Al Jordan.”

In “Breakfast with Rob,” he tells the story of two friends who meet for breakfast weekly. Things go awry, however, when one of the friends arrives for breakfast as a zombie.

“(‘Breakfast with Rob’) is almost a therapeutic story for me because the two main characters in that are me and my best friend,” he explained. “It’s told from my perspective. My friend and I used to meet for breakfast every Saturday, play cribbage and hang out at the same place. But as he got married and had kids, all of sudden he didn’t have time anymore. So I started telling that story and changed the ending with disastrous results.”

The novel, with art by Thiago Castro, was nominated for a Toonie award, which recognizes Pacific Northwest cartoonists and comic book authors and artists.

More importantly for Messinger, it was acknowledged by Romero, the master of the zombie genre.

“He really liked it,” he said. “He actually made me sit down next to him while he read it. That made me giddy like a school girl.”

In his second book, “Cauliflower for Al Jordan,” with art by Dario Reyes, Messinger tells the tale of a zombie Al Jordan, who has mistaken cauliflower for brains. After consuming the vegetable, the zombie begins to regain some of his humanity.

And for Messinger, it’s humanity that is the real secret to the popularity of the genre, not the zombies.

“That’s one thing that kind of gets lost in the mysticism of the vampire stories. It’s no longer about the human element, it’s about the supernatural element,” he explained. “I don’t think the zombie genre is necessarily focused on the supernatural element of it. It’s about human survival. And there is just an appeal to that.

“Everybody has a comfort zone, and thinking about yourself outside of that comfort zone is more scary than vampires or werewolves are ever going to be.”

For more information: visit www.creatorsedgepress.com and www.comicevolution.com