The Five Themes of the Twilight Zone
THE FIVE THEMES OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE
by Arlen Schumer
Foreword by Anne Serling
254 Pages
7x10 size
OCTOBER 2, 2024 is the 65th Anniversary of the debut of the greatest television show of all time: the science fiction, horror, and fantasy anthology series The Twilight Zone, created by one of the greatest American television writers (and broadcast voices) of the 20th Century, Rod Serling.
October 2, 2024 is also the publication date of a brand-new book about The Twilight Zone that examines the legendary series in a brand-new way, The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone, a collection of incisive essays on the most classic episodes of the show that are as entertaining as they are enlightening, written by Twilight Zone scholar and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (writer/designer, Visions from The Twilight Zone), organized into five themes that best represent the depth and breadth of The Twilight Zone, its episodes crafted by Serling and many other great writers, directors, and actors of different sensibilities, but ultimately united under one—Serling’s—vision.
With a Foreword by Serling’s daughter, author Anne Serling, The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone’s handsome book design by author Schumer beautifully mirrors the black and white television aesthetic of The Twilight Zone itself.
“Arlen Schumer’s wonderful book, The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone, is a passionate, insightful and exhaustive overview of Rod Serling’s masterpiece and how it has influenced virtually every aspect of our world in the sixty-plus years since its debut. I can’t think of a better guide to lead you through The Twilight Zone than Arlen and his book!”
—MARC SCOTT ZICREE, author of The Twilight Zone Companion
“Among the top echelon of Twilight Zone scholars and researchers, no one has plumbed the philosophical depths, intellectual substance, visual significance, and cultural impact of Rod Serling’s landmark series with more insight, perception, and acumen than Arlen Schumer. In The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone, a collection of essays that are every bit as engaging as they are enlightening, Schumer makes the case for why these are the essential episodes from ‘The fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.’”
—MARK DAWIDZIAK, author of Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone
“Arlen Schumer’s The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone presents, perhaps for the first time, the full magnitude of The Twilight Zone’s influence on popular culture in passionate, entertaining prose that follows the endlessly expanding tendrils of Rod Serling’s most famous creation. This is a tour de force study and unlike any Twilight Zone book to come before it.”
—NICK PARISI, author of Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination
ARLEN SCHUMER, MFA is a comic book-style illustrator and pop culture historian; his other books are The Neal Adams Sketchbook and The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, which won the Independent Publishers Award for Best Popular Culture Book. Regarding The Twilight Zone, the BBC said his works on the series were “a cut above the rest, full of passion and erudition,” many of
which can be seen on his website (arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone) and his Vimeo channel (vimeo.com/arlenschumer1
