I love a good zombie - but I much prefer them fast.

Also, the delightful trope of turning a loved one into a zombie hits all the right buttons for emotional resonance and our fear of death and "life beyond".

I like the NYT perspective, though - I can definitely see how that theory could play out.

As for the gender bias, you have your Twilight Girls and your Walking Dead Boys, but I'm not sure it stands up in court. You just have to look at the grandparents of horror novels: Mary Shelley wrote the gruesome monster romp and Bram Stoker wrote the romantic seduction.

Zombies smell bad. Vampires, they're pompous, but at least not smelly (just unwelcome, until the Twilight saga/scarring has receded from our collective souls).

Kirkman, writer Walking Dead, said his story less about the zombies and all about the humans, how does apocalypse change average joes, and what would you do to save your family, that kind of thing. The tv show a bit more about zombies, already we know why (that stays a mystery in comic book), and the make up artists were precise with their zombies, basing look on real life flesh decay. Extra real zombies, extra gooey fun.

Was curious about dystopic novel "Super Sad True Love Story", found this description at Salon, "... imagining the near-future disintegration of our nation under a combined load of foreign debt, plutocracy and delusions of personal exceptionalism." Sounds about right, which makes me think we're going to see a lot more stories with apocalyptic underpinnings, which means zombies (not vampires) may rule the day for a while.

The zombie genre has loads of room for development even still.

I'm really looking forward to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Shaun of the Dead was excellent. Zombieland was lots o fun.

You can do all kinds of stuff with the concept. In fact, you should take a look at my "Goode Cop - Zombie Cop" action comedy spec on the GITS board (shameless plug, I know...) but loads of fun!

Twilight Walking Dead Girls and Boys, but I am not sure that is before the courts. Just to see the grandparents of horror novels.
Motorcycle Parts

"What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels?"

1) That quote sort of puzzles me.

Aren't allegories of day to day existence also depictions of unconscious fears? Particularly in the Horror genre?

Isn't that the function of story? And fiction?

2) The author also seems surprised that genre material has a larger audience than a serious drama like Mad Men.

SERIOUSLY?!

What's hard to understand about that? Throughout the duration of the author's lifetime that has been true.

Why so surprised now?

@Scott

Completely agree with your sexist views. lol

In fact, Twilight will go a long way to back up your theory.