The Edmunds Zombie

I've been gone for a while, finishing the Distortions Unlimited book, and now it's time to get back to having some fun.

The Distortions book could have easily been 500-600 pages, however I was capped at 300 which means a lot of material was either abbreviated or cut altogether.  One of the stories that had to be abbreviated was the tale of the Edmunds Zombie.

For years, collectors have been tantalized by this photograph from the early 1980s, which shows a mask on the wall (directly above the Methuselah sculpture that Ed's working on) that resembles the iconic Zombie mask sculpted by Verne Langdon.

Writing the book gave me the opportunity to ask Ed about this mask during one of our many conversations.  When it comes to collecting, I'm more of a Don Post Studios guy than a Distortions guy.  That being said, I had a lot more fun writing the Distortions book than the DPS book for one reason.  Where Don Post Jr. saw himself as running the family business and would have been equally content if Don Post Studios made golf carts, Ed Edmunds is a monster kid through and through.  Like the majority of you reading this blog, he grew up on a steady diet of monster movies and reading Famous Monsters magazine.  It was through FM that Ed became aware of the Langdon Zombie.

Ed was enthralled with the mask from the first time he saw it. Unfortunately, within a very short period of time the mask turned up in the ads with a "Sold Out" banner.  Like many of us, he waited and waited for the mask to be available again, but it wasn't to be.  What we know now is that, after the initial run of less than 30 orders, the masks were produced and that was the end of the Zombie.  There was no intention to produce any more.  The reason the mask kept appearing in advertisements was simple.  When the advertisement was laid out, there was a single spot left blank so the Zombie was inserted with the "Sold Out" banner as a space filler.

At the time, Ed was a teenager in Long Grove, IL, and had been learning how to make masks.  When the Langdon Zombie didn't become available, he decided to try his hand at making his own version of the Zombie.  The mask accompanied Ed from Long Grove, to Pueblo, CO, and on to Greeley where Distortions was founded.  The mask was captured in the above photograph in Distortions' early days, however it eventually disappeared as the decades passed and Distortions moved several times.  The mask wasn't rediscovered until the summer of 2017 when Ed found it buried in a desk drawer when he was looking for something for the book.  It's looking worse for wear these days, however it is a one of a kind example of Ed's pre-Distortions work and is likely the first ever Langdon Zombie Tribute mask.

As an interesting side note, in the 1980s, Ed discussed licensing the Zombie to be produced as a Distortions mask.  Verne was agreeable but set the price at $5000 which Ed thought quite high.  At the time, Ed was spending licensing money of masks that were widely known for appearing in films.  Where Ed didn't see the Zombie having that mass appeal, he couldn't justify spending the money.  While he didn't license the Zombie, he did pay tribute to Verne's icon in choosing the color scheme for the Distortions Zombie in the late 1990s.