But dude -- zombie Roger Ebert would be so very cool. Just think of the look on Brian Glazer's face!

"If it's drawrn good, it'll be drawrn by Wood."
And Jack Davis. Those guys are part of my DNA.

Which, of course, will seep out of my coffin and infect a whole city if I'm not cremated myself.

Love love love love love love love love love love this!!!!!!!!!!

At one point I too wanted to be cremated. Then I decided that if I'm already donating my organs for research/transplants, I might as well donate whatever's left to fertilize the ground, no?

I am rabidly taphephobic. Nothing's more fearsome.

Convincing argument! But let me recount a story that happened to me last week.

I walked outside of our office and smelled the delicious smell of some barbecued meat. We're kind of secluded so I wondered where it was coming from.

For some reason I remembered a time a few months ago when a customer asked me if it was creepy working so near a funeral home. I didn't know what she was talking about. She pointed to a small building maybe 300 yards away and told me it was the crematorium.

I wished I hadn't remembered her telling me that. I looked over and saw smoke rising out of the small crematorium chimney and a strong wind was blowing it directly at me. Thus, the smell of barbecued meat.

I was always pro-cremation, but now I'm not so sure. Even though I'll be dead, I don't really like the idea of smelling delicious to someone.

Ebert: Okay, that does it. I'm having myself shot into space.

I totally had some of these exact issues as a kid! Fond childhood memories of TERROR.

(Granted, I'm 28, and they were reprints. But that just goes to show you that stories of corpses killing the living unite the generations.)

Ah, those were the days. Before Wertham, before the Comics Code Authority, before everything had to be a safe and wholesome superhero story.

Not that I was around for those days, but I still find myself missing them.

But what if your body, floating preserved in the cold of space, were intercepted by technically advanced beings who were able to mine your brain structures and reconstruct some parts of your consciousness? You wind up in a "Groundhog Day" nightmare, aware that you're reliving the same few memories over and over again for the next several millenia. I say go for it. The beings are likely to be kind, and will try to make it a fun ride. Keep hope alive!

Ebert: So, uh, what do you suggest? Throwing myself into a volcano?

Ebert: So, uh, what do you suggest? Throwing myself into a volcano?

Isn't that cremation all over again? Besides, what if you annoy the volcano? Just find a secluded crematorium, so you don't make the rest of us hungry.

Since my bizarre, rare cancer has come back (and the prognosis right now: not so good), I've been thinking more and more that I don't want to spend the last several months of my life gasping for air.

More and more, I've been thinking about buying a motorboat and about 2,000 feet of detonation cord.

I'd spend a few weeks hand-weaving a cap out of a hundred feet or so of the stuff, and then arrange to have the rest loop around my body several dozen times.

I'd bring several canisters of gasoline along, fill up the tank, and start heading out to sea—say, a couple of hundred miles offshore, going until it was completely dark. I'd slide into the body loops, put the cap on my head, get a hold of the trigger, and then I'd just stargaze. Two hundred miles out to sea under a clear sky, bright with stars, with the Milky Way arcing overhead. I'd try to spot Andromeda (which shouldn't be hard). I'd contemplate my place in the universe. I'd think of my friends, who (presumably) I'd already said goodbye to. I'd reflect on the amazing experience I had.

And when the time came, I'd press the trigger.

The fastest recorded nerve impulse is about 300 feet per second. Detcord burns at about 22,000 feet per second. If the rig is set up right, the entire thing would blow in about four ten-thousandths of a second. I would go from marvelous gratitude to oblivion faster than nerve impulses would travel. The brain would be utterly destroyed long before the slightest beginning of the shock registered, before any pain—even before the merest chance of regret or doubt. I would transition from Being to Not in a sudden flash of light; any gruesomeness would be under the cover of darkness.

It would, admittedly, be hard on the boat itself. It could kill a few fish. But I would be distributed back to the ocean. The sea is hungry; the few traces of me would be soon devoured, recycled into the biosphere, distributed all the quicker to be reincorporated into other beings, some possibly human. Given enough time, everyone on earth will have a couple of molecules in their lungs that shared my last breath.

It just sounds so much better than desperately trying to breathe. To just marvel, and be thankful, and then to decide and exit.

Ebert: Me, I'd look for a good hospice and set the TV on TCM.

A volcano is recommended only if you're a virgin.

The BBQ comment and being shot into space had me laughing so hard I woke my kid up. Whew, thanks for that!

I'm screwed either way. I'm so claustrophobic that I hyerventillate just thinking about it But with cremation, at least you're not in a box for the rest of eternity.

Human BBQ meat... I think the safest way is burial at sea. That way if you're in some sort of unnoticed paralysis you'll just drown. Suffocation in a coffin might be less traumatic, but all the waiting would be a drag.

That does it. I'm becoming immortal.

Go for burial at sea... regardless of your container.

http://www.epa.gov/region2/water/oceans/burials.htm

Just don't forget that a container should be used, and properly weighted. You really don't want this to happen:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/15/1826758/questions-over-botched-burial.html

Well Roger, at least you didn't experience another one of the most frightfully indulgent thriller captions: consciousness during surgery.

No, don't try the volcano thing. Tom Hanks tried that, didn't work.

Ben K's comment reminded me of the deranged hillbilly cook from MOTEL HELL who used human flesh to liven up the menu.

Vincent Smith:
"It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters."

Tibetan sky burial, all the way!

Check it out, if you dare (EXTREMELY graphic): http://mbvtravel.com/burials-in-tibet-not-for-sensitive-souls

Ebert: Better than the worms playing pinochle on my snout.

I am so enamored by sky burial! When I first watched Kundun and then heard the bones being crushed and saw the birds at the Dali Lama's father's burial, I couldn't believe it! I'd never heard of that...

But, it makes perfect sense for that part of the world. Ground to rocky to bury... not enough fuel for cremation... sooo... why not?

I think it's the way to go, too! Either that way or cremation... But if I'm cremated, I want it done in the way of the movie Departures (how touching was that!).

Or, you can go the way of Zoroastrians (though I think Freddy Mercury was actually cremated): The Tower of Silence -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence

Call me morbid, but I think burial and funeral customs are fascinating... Says so much about a people and culture...

instead of disassembling one's molecules, why not turn them into something useful, like a habitat for marine life? http://www.eternalreefs.com/

Not a volcano. You'd bounce painfully along the crater wall on the way down.

For now, I suggest a super deep freeze here on earth, with all conceivable while reasonable safeguards in place. At the same time, I'd be cultivating just a little small doubt that perhaps there's some kind of existence beyond death, or beside death, or inside, over, under, through, with a möbius twist.

Haven't there been any hints in your life that offer even a ray of hopeful doubt? Maybe we should try to be less certain about some things.

(hit Option+u, then o, for ö)

Yikes! I might prefer the worms!

Our way of death is very strange, isn't it?
Next time you are around Niles, let me know, and I'll tell you the "based on a true story" about the Beeson house on Bond Street which will rival anything you have ever read in Gaines' magazines.

(Not kidding. It will freak you out.)

http://www.weirdmichigan.com/cemetery.html
DVD

Have you ever seen these? Diamonds made of cremated ashes. http://www.lifegem.com/

The third and fifth covers reminded me of the so-called dancing coffins of the Chase Vault in Barbados. I first read about this when I was a kid in a book called "This Baffling World" and it kept me awake for several nights. Information of the Chase Vault can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Vault

I guess cremation would be fine...so long as I'm not alive when they put me in the oven.

I lean toward cremation, but I also figure that it really won't matter to me at that point.

What does annoy me is the thought of my funeral at a church that I have despised most of my life. That bothers me, but again, there won't be much I can do about it.

Ebert: So, uh, what do you suggest? Throwing myself into a volcano?

[SPOILER ALERT]

Then it might spit you out again, ala Joe Versus the Volcano.

How about this service, which presses your ashes into vinyl and can be made into LPs? It's unique, it provides people hours of listening pleasure, and after your death you can still skip.

http://www.andvinyly.com/

No, please don't opt for cremation! I suggest Cryogenic Preservation. That way, you can be thawed out when medical technology advances enough to cure any problems and even revert to a younger age.

Science fiction? Not anymore, incredible advances are being made in this area.

Most of the covers show the zombie having the upper hand so to speak...and my revenges would definately be served "cold"....

I'm just planning to live forever...

why would anyone worry about this? since many of us seem to agree that when you're dead, there's no more chapters, worrying about what happens to you after you die makes as much sense as worrying about what happened to you before you were born. let's say that you were born in 1942 (yeah, i checked wikipedia). when you die, it will be like 1940, or 1939, or any earlier year was to you. so it doesn't matter, to you anyway, whether you're creamated, buried, or eaten.

I love the cover art. I've read all of the stories of the "Tales from the Crypt" series. Some are brilliant most are ok, but few are bad.

In Egypt, we get buried, but not in a coffin, they put you in an underground room with your family and ancestors.

Such amazing covers.

And the Al Feldstein masterpiece--with that cutaway view of the guy screaming in the coffin and far above him his "entomber" casually walking away, burial tools slung over his shoulder--is one of the most disturbing comic book images ever.

Check out this gallery of lurid covers from what had to be a huge influence on E.C., "CRIME DOES NOT PAY." A sensation in its day, with an audited bi-monthly circulation of 1.5 million, the first true crime comic book was a real mother!

http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/crime-does-not-pay

Although Charles Biro's cover work isn't usually as smooth or glorious as the E.C. masters, he often conjured up startling and striking images. Some worth noting:

CDNP #24...Only the new crime format's third issue, and the magazines is already busting the envelope. We are shown a man and woman tussling in a kitchen. The man in overpowering the woman and pushing her face against a stove burner. We actually see her head being engulfed in flames while the man sneers at her. Whew...

CDNP #26...The first cover reference in CDNP to someone getting their eye gouged out, shot out, or otherwise removed. There would be many others to come. Dr. Wertham refered to this famously as the "injury-to-eyeball motif" in his condemnation of comic books such as "Crime Does Not Pay."

CDNP #33...Here you can see Charles Biro's obvious influence on E.C.'s horror approach. The illustration is cartoony and goofy-looking in a way, but the subject matter is most sinister. A twisted maniac with a meat cleaver is throttling a woman on a hill while a macabre autumnal moon illuminates a gnarled tree. Were this image not disturbing enough, the background shows us a makeshift hanging party, with no less than five corpses twisting in the wind. Severely creepy.

CDNP #34...The very next issue, Biro presented one of his most gripping compositions, that of a man being pushed to his death in an elevator shaft. We see the victim clutching for empty air as he realizes what is being done to him. Biro shows us the man's hat, which has flown off in the fall. And just to be sure that we get the dreadful point, Biro includes shaft markings that indicate the man will be falling seven floors to his demise. Still, the beauty of the image is its POV from an upper floor within the shaft, staring straight down at oblivion. Biro gives us a perspective illustration that never quits scaring us, in large part because of his command of visual detail.

CDNP #38...In a piece de resistance of general seediness, Biro shows us two gangsters and a moll hiding out in a broken-down shack. The police, whom we see through the shattered window pane, are closing in. Inside the shack, one gunman is reloading his revolver. The other gangster is howling something through the window at the cops. Down the right side of his face streams blood. Then we realize that there is only an earless hole, which makes perfect sense when we look at a nearby table, where the bloodied, pulpy remains of his right ear are laying. (Meanwhile, in the background, the moll appears to be bored and working on her nails.)

CDNP #42...CDNP stories usually ended in one of two ways--with the criminal either being gunned down in some alleyway or getting the "hot seat." Few criminals ever received life sentences or pled out to lesser offenses. Justice was handled by the book--the Old Testament. The two probable outcomes were married into what is probably Biro's most creative and lasting image. A criminal is backed up in the end of an alley, shooting it out with unseen authorities. Behind him, against the wall, we see his shadow, except that the shadow outlines the same man being zapped in an electric chair instead of standing in an alley. The combining of the two themes into one image is masterful and underscores the drama, showing us the desperation that drives this criminal. (One way or another, he ain't goin' to the Chair.)

There are many more "Crime Does Not Pay" cover images worth studying at the gallery. Enjoy!

Ebert: Those are great covers!

Autumn 1950's Dad had to drive Mommy to have a baby. Five big brothers were instructed to link hands and walk sister to Sunday Mass. Telling me we were "visiting Mummy" we walked past the church and into the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. In their dirt basement a shiny golden glass crypt
was dazzling even with the dingy wrapped corpse. --the dark HAIR sticking out of dirty gauze was MOMS!!
(Man, still trembling.)

And people say Roger Ebert doesn't like horror movies...

My love of EC knows no bounds, just to look upon these wonderful covers fills me with that as-yet-to-be-defined feeling of nostalgia for an age I was not a part of. EC holds a big influence over me, part of the reason we're trying to develop this at the moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqAtX4jK0i8

Viva William Gaines! Down with Frederick Wertham!

Augh! I've been traumatized! If only there were an Authority to protect me from seeing those comic books!

Great to see that you are an E.C. fan, Roger. I second the nod that you would make a kick-ass zombie, btw. Lay some afterlife smackdown and all that...