By Stephanie Davidson, Zombabiez
"Gross! That's so cute!"
Truer words were never spoken about Zombabiez, a torso-only zombie Halloween costume for babies.
I created Zombabiez to answer the calls of mommies and daddies sick of dressing their babies as pumpkins or lions for Halloween. For those of us who march to the beat of our own drum, we find the baby costume industry sadly lacking in originality.
When it comes down to it, the pre-walking stage of life is really as zombie-like as it gets: the non-verbal communication, lack of motor skills, the drooling and the groaning.
Zombabiez began as a silly idea, conceived of at a wedding when a friend mistook a crawling infant for a "torso-only zombie."
Zombies aren't for everyone. "Yuck, no one will want that," responded one mother. A blog ran an article, "Gaga? or GAG!" But as all artists must do at some point, I threw caution to the wind, ignored the naysayers and stuck to my guns. I knew in my weird little heart of hearts that this was a good idea.
There was no looking back. I made a few drawings and a prototype, and with the help of friends, I filmed a video and launched a Kickstarter campaign. It was nerve-wracking, but the campaign slowly gained traction.
More and more of the young, zombie-obsessed parents that I knew in my living heart must be out there started finding and funding my project. We surpassed our goal by 30 percent. A nail in the coffin for zombie haters.
Why do people like zombies? What with popular shows like The Walking Dead and blockbusters like World War Z, zombie mania has been spreading like a virus. Those who find the fad unappealing are thinking skin-deep. What appeals to fans is the post-apocalyptic world that zombies inhabit.
We get it, zombies are gross. But it's not the zombie itself that we love: It's imagining the world after everything goes down. A small group of us strong enough to survive the breakout, setting out to discover, understand and rebuild this changed world -- and protect our own little drooling, stumbling (zom)babies.
It's thanks to zombie culture that Zombabiez exists to begin with, and it appears zombie-mania is here to stay. So buy yourself some emergency supplies, get some bars on those windows and order your little one a Zombabiez costume.
Or else you could just go with a pumpkin again...
Stephanie Davidson is a recent graduate of the illustration department at the Rhode Island School of Design, and she works and lives in NYC. She has a particularly shapely cat, a deep-seated penchant for all things weird and creepy, and is the creator of Zombabiez.