Chris Ulm’s Zombie Pizza

Halloween is coming and it’s the favorite time for witches, ghosts and everybody’s favorite: zombies. I love the undead, you love the undead, and so does Chris Ulm. But who’s Ulm? He was one of the co-founders of Malibu Comics back in the day, the originator of what became the Ultraverse and co-creator of Rune with Barry Windsor-Smith. He’s now one of the founders of Appy Entertainment, which creates games for the iPhone.

Working from their Secret Worldwide Headquarters, and just in time for Halloween, the Appy boys have released Zombie Pizza. The game has you racing against the clock to make pizzas with disgusting ingredients - brains, guts, bones, eyeballs, etc. Fill the orders fast enough or your undead customers will smash through the restaurant doors and take a thick slice out of your head.

According to Ulm, Zombie Pizza is “a fast-paced, light-hearted horror puzzle game where lightning-quick reactions are all that stand between you and a grisly fate at the hands of the ravenous undead.”

Zombie Pizza is available at the iTunes store for just 99¢, about 1/4 the price of a regular comic book these days.

Click to continue reading Chris Ulm’s Zombie Pizza

Read More | Appy Zombie Pizza via Appy Entertainment

ULTRAVERSE: BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH AND RUNE PEZ

One of the great joys of working in comics is getting to hang out with a lot of creative people. As comics are Frankensteined together out of their various parts, you have access to fun stuff that never makes its way into print – notes, sketches, doodles, penciled pages, rough drafts, color tests, model sheets, costume designs, etc. Sometimes in the heat of production an artist will do something really funny that gets passed around from desk to desk and much laughter ensues.

Malibu Comics’ Editor-in-Chief Chris Ulm was one of the founders of the Ultraverse (it was his idea, if anyone asks) and he was also the co-creator of Rune with Barry Windsor-Smith. They envisioned Rune as the UV’s ultimate villain, a vampire of sorts who would be to the Ultraverse what Galactus was to the Marvel Universe and what Darkseid was to the DC Universe.

Rune starred in his own comic, guest-starred in others, and fought both Conan and the Silver Surfer. Not too shabby for an upstart neck-biter. One of the things the Ultraverse had going for it was a strong licensing department. There were a couple of people in the office who were always out hustling up licensing partners for t-shirts, watches, pins and more. That led to a little creative fun from Rune artist Barry Windsor-Smith and his inker Alex Bialy. They sent this little fax to Chris Ulm with their humorous pitch for a potential licensing partner. For the first time outside of the Malibu offices, you can now see the Toy That Should Have Been Made: The Rune Pez Dispenser, the first in a new product line of “vampire Pez” or possibly “comic book Pez.” Enjoy!

(Rune © Marvel Comics)