Today the Stork wore a uniform of scudgy industrial greenish-brown! Around eleven this morning the UPS guy delivered our bouncing baby My Pet Zombie from Gore Galore.

This is a full-sized, studio-quality prop. This particular model is called the Popeye, for reasons that will become apparent below. The body is a closed-cell foam, cast from a real person’s body (living, presumably) and reinforced with a welded armature of 5/8 inch spring steel. It’s bendable—just barely, this stuff’s quite strong—which makes this guy poseable, though getting him into a sitting position might require a bit of effort.

The head is a separate foam-filled latex mask, full head and neck, wtih a flap of “skin” front and back that you tuck into the shirt to make the head-body transition seamless. The hands are made from the same foam and are detatchable. The fingers aren’t poseable, which is a tiny bummer, but hardly a deal-killer. He comes complete with a set of clothes that have been antiqued for that fresh-from-the-grave look.

The attention to detail in this thing is just wonderful. I’ve been wanting a high-quality prop for some time, and this one fits the bill just about perfectly. Many of you know I built a life-sized articulated figure out of wood a few years back that I’ve used for many Halloweens, but My Pet Zombie makes the old one look, well, like a pile of lumber by comparison. I figure it can accessorize him six was from Sunday and turn him into a new Halloween prop every couple of years, making him versatile as well as alluring. And if I run out of ideas, there’s always Gore Galore’s Cadaverama line to avail myself of.

So if you’re in the neighborhood this All Hallow’s Eve, be sure to come over and check out My Pet Zombie. He’ll be easy to find; just backtrack along the line of fleeing, shrieking children.