Remember Pat the Bunny? That warm and fuzzy childhood book now has a sick, sick cousin Pat the Zombie. "Something about the brain-numbing prose of the original Pat the Bunny -- and the acute appeal of a zombie touch-and-recoil book -- just popped for me at once," author Aaron Ximm says.

Yes, he's a dad. Yes, he has a young daughter. Upon flipping through the advance copy of the book (to his wife's horror), his daughter asked him "Daddy, what is wrong with these people?!" Ximm wasn't sure if she was referring to the zombies in the book, or to him and illustrator Kaveh Soofi for coming up with the whole concept.

Style Council: I see that the bunny is the zombie. Do you think rabbit zombies would be scary?

Ximm: Honestly I think Zombunnie is the expression of an only partially explored and incompletely understood cultural archetype, some long-eared shadow in the back of our shared psyche.

There's a pulsing vein of unnerving or threatening rabbits in our cultural history, which seems so far to have hopped just outside collective notice, from the killer rabbit in Python's Holy Grail to Donny Darko's shadow. Farther back, Alice's rabbit hole is a dark passage into the unnerving and strange, is it not?

Consider too that there is something truly macabre, even sinister, in carrying the severed foot of a an animal as a talisman of good fortune. I wonder there if there is some homeopathic magic intended, to ward off the bunny itself.

You know, all the fanfare has always gone to the stereotype of the Dark Clown. But I think this may be the Dark Bunny's moment.

More »

awkwardstockphotos.com

Nothing beats a good laugh over a truly ridiculous photo. You know the ones. Family portraits gone horribly awry. An epic photo bomb. Those photos you never, ever want tagged of yourself on Facebook. They're those happy mistakes that have enlivened and shaped viral Internet culture (and that make passing time in your cubicle a hell of a lot more enjoyable).

Mark Hauge, a graphic designer from Chicago-land, Illinois, is the man behind AwkwardStockPhotos.com, a photo blog started in January 2010 that delivers a daily dose of WTF gems handpicked from various stock photography sites around the world. We caught up with Mark to chat about the blog, what truly defines an awkward stock photograph, and why there's always some girl in a bikini who pops up no matter what you're trying to research on the Internet.

Below is our interview and Mark's picks for his top ten awkward stock photographs of all time (including an Evil Conan O'Brien sabotaging Jay Leno's favorite ride with a maniacal, yet gentle, placement of a banana into the exhaust pipe). Enjoy. And try not to spit out your coffee in front of your boss.

More »

Steve La

(L-R) Upright Citizens Brigade Founders Matt Walsh, Matt Besser and Ian Roberts

Since opening in 2005, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre has been the epicenter of comedic influence in Los Angeles. Some of the funniest comedians ranging from Sarah Silverman to Patton Oswalt are all regular perfomers there. UCB founders Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh started their careers at the Improv Olympic Theatre in Chicago training under the late improv guru Del Close. Together with Amy Poehler, they created the cult hit TV series Upright Citizens Brigade that aired on Comedy Central for three seasons. Along the way, they formed a comedy theater and a long-form improv school in New York, later opening up a West Coast branch in L.A. Before their fifth anniversary show, LA Weekly caught up with the guys responsible for bringing so much laughter and joy to comedy geeks everywhere.

More »

Gina Meyers wrote that Twilight cookbook, Love At First Bite. Some of you loved it. Some of you hated it. Here, she talks food, vampires and defends herself against the haters. And yes, she will be releasing a second Twilight cookbook.

Have any people claiming to be vampires bought your book?

No one claiming to be a vampire, but a tattoo artist did purchase the book. And a lot of Team Edward and Team Jacob fans. A female prison guard by the name of Velma, after seeing my culinary talents as broadcast on the evening news, camped out all night in her car to come to my book signing and drove a total of four hours.

More »

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, of the Adult Swim series Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, are hitting the road. The duo's home television network just announced that Tim and Eric Awesome Tour, Great Job Chrimbus Spectacular 2010 will launch in Seattle on November 1 and conclude in Atlanta on December 5, which also happens to be the date Adult Swim will air the hour-long holiday special Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Chrimbus Special. Tim and Eric are scheduled to perform at Club Nokia in Los Angeles on November 6.

Shannon Cottrell

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim at Comic-Con, 2010

More »

Steve La

The crowd lines up before the show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

It's close to midnight on Saturday as an army of comedy fanatics amass in front of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hollywood. They're all eager to see the evening talk show What's Going On? With Mike Mitchell. The program has attracted a huge following and usually sells out quickly.

More »

Thanks to a little thing called the Internet, approximately 150 people in and around Long Beach descended upon the East Village Art District's Basement Lounge last night for a not-so-secret performance by comedian David Cross. Seeing a well-known celebrity in a tiny venue with cheap, stiff drinks is a guaranteed fun way to kill a Wednesday night, but when the star in question is part of an improvisational, one-night-only on-stage interview that included calling The Doors "overrated," that Thursday morning hangover almost feels worth the pounding agony.

Ryan Ritchie

More »

Nicole Campos

Len Peralta's W00tstock 2.4 poster - drawn during the show, right on stage!

For what is typically considered one of the lighter, less big events-heavy days of Comic-Con, this year's must-see-and-do Thursday events in and around the convention center were outrageously plentiful. You had to choose your battles both in the official panels and screenings, and the offsite awesome - and it's awfully rough to choose between the first-ever public screening of Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World with in-house DJs and cast and crew, or the Machete preview party with courtesy taco service by Robert Rodriguez himself. Of course, there was also the weapons-grade-nerd alternative: Head down to 4th & B for the triumphant California return of W00tstock.

Nicole Campos

Wil Wheaton gives Molly Lewis a lyric sheet assist.

The traveling gathering of nerd culture icons - spearheaded by Wil Wheaton, Mythbusters' Adam Savage, and comedy-folk troubadours Paul & Storm - seemed a no-brainer for the Comic-Con weekend, though it came together relatively quickly. (As Wheaton explained to the crowd "We put a big X in July [for a possible show] thinking 'Well, we're all going to be at Comic-Con, and... wait, we're all going to be at Comic-Con!'")

More »

Nicole Campos

Summer! What does it mean to you? Sun in your eyes? Sand in your crack? Comedian Howard Kremer has a few ideas, which he's been trumpeting since right around the time spring petered out if you follow him on Twitter or caught his "Have A Summah!" short (co-starring a game Zooey Deschanel) on Funny Or Die:

More »

Childrens Hospital, comedian Rob Corddry's series that began life on the web and launched its cable television debut on Adult Swim Sunday night, is what might happen to your favorite medical show if you left in all of the steamy relationships and cut out the medical bits.

Erin Broadley

More »