photo: Phillip Blackman |
The result was a bear drenched in blood with it holding its heart in its hand which it had torn out of its own chest. Talk about a little intense or what. The picture of that bear is in the photo to the right.
Liking his work, Blackman decided to try his hand at selling his bear on Etsy, which is a place where crafters can sell their wares online.
The popularity of the teddy bear zombies immediately soared, as the images made perfect fodder for social networking sites, where people used them to share with one another as the images went viral.
According to Blackman, he can't meet the demand, as it has soared, especially as Valentine's Day has approached. Apparently that's from the inclusion of the heart in the zombie teddy bear design, which I'm sure some sulky person will be glad to show to their sweetheart to remind them of how much they've hurt them.
Blackman sells the bears usually in a range of $70 to $140, taking him usually two days to produce one of them. Some have sold for as much as $400 on eBay.
The process for Blackman is easy. All he does is scour around yard sales and thrift shops to acquire the used bears, and from there he transforms them into the gruesome zombies that are so desirable by adherents of the genre.
Calling his creations Undead Teds, Blackman doesn't know how long the trend will last, but with the popularity of zombies in pop culture, it appears he'll have a run that will last for some time.