Sometimes a scanno can open up a whole new perspective

[kestrell]

While I'm kind of at a loss for the popular fascination with zombies, I seem to have developed a sudden addiction for reading academic books about zombies in popular culture. The book I am currently reading was very obviously scanned from a paper version of the book and, frankly, I think zombies could have done a better job of it.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. What I wanted to mention was that sometimes one comes across a scanno which opens up all sorts of new ideas.

The one which I am particularly fascinated by is one scholar's statement that, zombies, unlike other varieties of monster, do not have a long narrative history, unlike, say _Dracula_, written by *Brain Stoker.*

Let's see: _Dracula_ contains piles and piles of maundering prose, and Stoker *was* a theatrical agent...

I think that an argument could be made that Brain Stoker was some variety of evil zombie. Really, I want to read the book where Brain Stoker, the zombie theatrical agent, and Robbie Stevenson, the wimpy ailing guy with a split personality, team up to solve a mystery, possibly located in an alternate London where Holmes only accepts cases from those who are not life-impaired.

Comments

[rinue]

I thought there were a number of popular vampire books/plays pre-Stoker and he was capitalizing on a trend. Have I misunderstood?

[kestrell]

You are correct. I am having a rantfest with these academic writings, as most of them seem to have done some very shoddy research and most of them demonstrate very little familiarity with anything before the twentieth century.