This and that and everything …

I hate the New Year.

Ok, I get it, you’re probably thinking “get on with it old man, you hate a lot of things,” but if you’ll indulge me here for a brief moment, then you’ll see that I have something to really say about the New Year.

I really (emphasis is clearly my own) hate the New Year because it forces me to think about the fact that another twelve months of my life has flown by, in what seems to be an ever increasing  and perilous amount of speed. It forces me to acknowledge that I am one more year closer to death, one more year removed from the awesomeness/horribleness (not really a word, I’ve slammed two industrial sized Red Bull’s, three pots of coffee and possibly enough over the counter truck stop speed to kill a small battalion of polar bears, so go easy on me) that was my twenties and the foulness that is the onset of my thirties.

However, all personal bias aside, It does afford me the opportunity to look back and take stock of all the great things that I have experienced, read, seen and physically done throughout the preceding year. So, since this is sort of a meandering account of my favorite thing, my most favorite moment of 2010, then I should start by saying that this was invariably a tough assignment, because 2010 seemed to be my sort of year.

You see 2010, in my opinion, was THE year of the Zombie. No matter where you looked you were bound to bump into one of the walking dead, especially on television, where literally  AMC ‘s “The Walking Dead,” reigned supreme. 5 million viewers for the season finale can’t be wrong, can they?

Essentially Zombies killed 2010 and resurrected it. It’s true. The ever present purveyors of zombie fiction, Permuted Press, reached a deal with Simon and Schuster thereby bringing Z.A Recht’s “Morningstar” series along with Kim Paffenroth’s “Dying to Live,” series (and more) to main stream book shelves, Zombies finally dethroned the bashful super sexed teeny bopping vampires of “Twilight,” George A Romero was seen as being the end all be all of film makers during this time; hell, David Moody, possibly one of the kings of zombie literature, landed his “Autumn” series at St Martin Griffins. It was a fantastic and absolutely wonderful year to be a flesh-o-phile.

The Aforementioned “Walking Dead,” television series destroyed the airwaves by sending post apocalyptic shock awe along with heart breaking story telling into the ocular cavities of millions of household viewers. B, C and D level horror movie catalogs were filled with zombie themed stories. Comics, Manga, Anime, art and more seemed to be endlessly searching for signs of reanimated life around every corner and down every avenue. Yes it was a good year to be a ghoul. An even better year to be someone with a ghoul based property up for auction.

But that wasn’t the best. That wasn’t my best.

When the call came down to put out a sort of best of 2010, retrospect article, I was optimistic that I could come up with something fun, or at least mildly entertaining. I was wrong. I was very wrong actually and it’s hard for me to admit that. I wanted to do something on how Zombies were the “It” thing and I think that I did with the last few paragraphs. Anyone who says different can meet me by the swing sets, near the old oak tree, after school. But as I came to look upon the year as it actually went down, the best part, my most favorite thing about the year wasn’t that zombies came to power, or took over mainstream culture, far from it.

The best thing for me, in 2010, was being a part of the Flames Rising family. I know how cheesy and remarkably sappy that sounds, but it’s true. I have enjoyed my time here at Flames Rising more than I have enjoyed the many, many books on flesh starved corpses that I have ingested. I have enjoyed spending time with, even the brief amount of time with, Matt and Monica, reading the other reviewers reviews, helping the site out and of course going to Wizard World Chicago.

So for me, 2010 wasn’t just about something in the genre/realm of Horror, or even all the awesome Horror related products that came out during the year, though there were many and many of those were Zombie related. It was about enjoying the ride and time spent here, writing reviews and pushing my opinions on you the readers and fans of the site. I am truly fortunate to have done so. I am truly fortunate and grateful for everyone at Flame Rising to have put up with me, as I know I can be a bit of a, how do you say it? Ah, yes…petulant, pedantic, childish and opinionated ass.

But as much as I have been those things I am also still, as I was when I started writing here a promoter of this site, a believer in this site and a fan of this site. I know that we truly have something here, something that many of you readers and fans and promoters believe in and love as well. We have the best of the best, when it comes to guest writers, reviewers, full time staff part timers, freelancers, book excerpts, movie and video game scoops, etc and the like. So I say 2010 was the year of the Zombie, but it was really the year of Flames Rising, viva la Flames!

Thank you, good night and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Eric Pollarine

Tags | Flames Rising, modern-horror, permuted-press, post-apocalyptic, The Walking dead, zombies