Piece of the Freak: ‘Cartoon Zombie Party’ by Martyee

Happy Halloween! Welcome to the ghoulish, freakish edition of Piece of the Week Freak, where we are celebrating everything un-dead and awesome. “Cartoon Zombie Party” depicts a scene that illustrator Martyee says “illustrates a party being enjoyed by a number of zombies in the graveyard on Halloween,” and he points out that “the zombies have cartoony poses, worms coming out of them and eyeballs popping out. One zombie has had his head drop off while rising from the grave.” Perhaps on Halloween night, finding your own head falling off is merely a hazard of the evening, one that Martyee has captured effortlessly.

“Cartoon Zombie Party” is skillfully stitched and painted together, blending the background with the carefully composed zombies. The composition of the piece is so strong that there is never a dull moment in viewing the work. The visuals draw you from one-eyeballed girl, past a skeletal cat, upwards to an array of staggering zombies with their arms splayed in semi-rigor mortis glory.

“Cartoon Zombie Party” isn’t actually scary, in fact it’s quite endearing and fun. Martyee has created an artwork that captures our imagination and taps into the part of us all that secretly wants there to be a zombie apocalypse (we all kinda want to witness that, right?) I think this is a beautiful example of the function of great illustration — it’s seasonal, relevant, engaged in its own subject and skillfully executed.