Thursday 9 January 2014

"Braaaaaaaaaains!" Or how to go back in time and make a zombie book cover...

Now out in ebook and on Amazon (or available as a paperback and ebook in North America), The Secret Zombie History of the World is a collection of three nerve-rending novels about famous zombie outbreaks of the past thousand years.

... or they would be famous, if they hadn't been suppressed by the authorities. Luckily, thanks to publishing these important stories as 'novels' rather than exposés, we've been able to get the truth out - that mankind has come closer than we realise to succumbing to the zombie apocalypse.

Toby Venables, Paul Finch, and Matthew Sprange have all bravely turned fact into fiction, lest They take notice and shut us down. Such brave warriors for the truth!

But to complete the illusion, we needed a cover; one that would accurately reveal the horrors contained within. And to make those horrors a reality, we naturally turned to our PR guy, Mike.

Mike dresses up at weekends. Mostly as a Roundhead but he has previously been spotted as a rather portly Judge Dredd and a beggar. (how would we tell that that was a disguise? - Ed.) One day in the office, this slightly unwell history obsessive declared that along with two of his 'friends' (shome mishtake, shurely? - Ed.) he was going to put the history into the hysterical (or possibly the other way around - Ed.) and provide our cover designer with some "authentic" images on which to base the cover... He was last seen clanking off into the distance with a determined look on his face (first and last time - Ed.)

Ed! Do you mind?! >:(

Anyway, along with his mates David Eliot Cooper and Rob Temple of Histrionics he found a spot in the grounds of Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds to get some shots of the three 'ages' in which the novels of tSZHotW are set: Vikings, Medieval, and Napoleonic.

These are the results...





Oh dear...






And lo. These images, SOMEHOW, were turned into this rather lovely book cover by the wonderous Pye Parr.


So now you know.

Reports that the participants have now disappeared after being bundled into cars by men in black suits and sunglasses have not yet been confirmed...