Pet Peeve of the Day

You probably all know I'm a zombie junkie. I pretty much mainline any form of entertainment that includes the flesh-eating variety of the living dead. Dana, she do love her carnivorous reanimated corpses, mmm hmmmm.

But what irritates the crap out of me is when writers and filmmakers think they're being oh so clever and original by naming characters and places after other horror or zombie genre authors and filmmakers. Every time I run across a 'General Romero', 'Captain Fulci' or grunt named Schow, O'Bannon or Savini, it takes me right out of the story. I wanna slap the author and say, 'no, you AREN'T oh so clever 'cause everyone else is paying the same friggin' homage to the same people and it's just way too self-conscious and precious . We get that you all love and admire these filmmakers and authors. I do too. But it's been done. And overdone. And if I ever name a character that isn't a dog or a cat after one of these guys, all of you authors I'm talking to here have permission to smack me a good one.

Fulci would actually make a great name for a black cat, doncha think?