Zombie Cliche Lookout: Immediate Callback
You can never make things too easy for characters in a zombie story. In order to build and maintain tension, they’ve got to struggle for things, and this often goes far beyond just evading and/or fighting zombies. Things pile on quickly: the car breaks down, they run out of food, someone starts a slow-burning mental breakdown… the list goes on and on.
Those are all fairly big problems, but it’s often the littler things that tend to get under people’s skin and drive them crazy. Little things, like maybe someone in the group not liking you and taking a bunch of little potshots at you whenever they can.
About this Episode:
I get the feeling that Murphy is becoming a lot of people’s favorite around here, and I can certainly understand why. He takes on a leadership role, as a police officer he has both skills and a certain level of in-grained authority, and he seems to be fairly level-headed. That’s a big reason why I decided to have him sabotage Brent’s camera.
It gives us a chance to dissect the character a little, and see how unilateral thinking might not always be the best way to go, especially in a group of relative strangers.
I think it was well in character: a decisive action to address an issue that could turn serious (Brent’s messing around with his camera could easily get him or others into trouble in a tight spot). Of course, it was also done without too much consideration as to how it looked, and how the rest of the group would react. The comments in the episode bore that out almost immediately, as several of you thought that Murphy was trying to hide something. I’m really interested to see where this goes.
Other News:
I know I already talked about this on Facebook, but just in case anyone missed it: Bricks of the Dead was written up on a German LEGO® blog, Bricktopia. You can check out their write-up here. It helps if you speak German, but Chrome’s auto-translate does a halfway decent job with it.
Discussion Question: A New Theme?
We’ve been talking a lot lately about accessories and minifigs, so let’s take that line of thought a little broader: if you could design a theme, what would it be? And let’s not make this too fantastical. This would have to be a theme that could actually sell, so it would need to be able to support a range of set sizes, with dynamic characters, play potential, and interesting building (and probably flick-fire missiles, because those darn things are everywhere).
Zombies and flick-fire missiles: Everywhere!
Sort of like politicians on an electoral campaign! 
Shouldn’t Murphy, of all the members in the group, explain why he did the tape? I think he owes it to them at least so they know what his point of view on distractions is. After all, if someone asks him in the middle of fighting zombies, he could get distracted!
Well, he did. He said he did it because he wanted Brent to focus and not be screwing around with the camera. Should he be a bit more candid about it? Probably.
I dont know what it says about me as a person or about my leadership style, but I would have disabled the camera in such a was as to make it appear like a normal failure or damage from the days action. I understand Murphy’s reasons for destroying the tape, but I dont see anything to be gained from being confrontational about it. (Not to mention its not like the tape wont be fairly easy to replace at some point, VHS tapes are pretty common) I can understand that some people are totally up front about this kind of thing and want to get everything into the open and do a lot of “straight talking.” But its also been my experience that some people will resist any outside suggestion even if its plainly for their own good. (remember when Michigan passed its seatbelt laws?) Its possible that secretly disabling the camera would have lead to a some suspicion from Inez and Brent anyway, but the way he handled it has created conflict and distrust when it might have been avoided. I can also see Brent getting into trouble at some point trying to obtain another camera either from a store or a downed news crew.
I want more Alien Invasion. I feel like TLG took a big crap on my head cutting that one short.
I want more Monster Hunters, too, and especially exploration of the steampunk feel of it. For that matter, combine them: make a steampunk alien conquest, a la War of the Worlds or John Carter of Mars.
It seems like they start a lot of interesting themes, only to abandon them too quickly. Alien Invasion was great, as was Monster Hunters.
Steampunk alien conquest? Yes please.
Star Trek. I’ve been wishing Lego would do Star Trek ever since they started doing Star Wars.
I’ll bet a lot of people would be on board with that.
Count me in, too.
Star trek? now thats a joke that we can all laugh at.
Bite your tongue. Star Trek beats Halo any old day. The story more compelling, by comparison. The writing is smarter; and the fans are better. Halo fans are just pubescent caffeine addicts by comparison.
That’s kind of an unfair assumption there Bo. I’m a fan of Halo and I find that the universe and story is rather well done. Just because something is younger than something else doesn’t mean the story quality is bad. The fandom indeed is made up of gamers, for the majority, but there are many of us that have played all the games fro the story. As well we’ve read the books and there is quite a bit of depth to it.
And all added after the fact, and not part of the games’ canon.
Sure, they’re entertaining games; but to defend AC when he wrote that a Star Trek LEGO theme is “a joke that we can all laugh at” is at least twice as obtuse as anything I wrote. At least I attempted to make an argument, rather than dismissing something out of hand.
Wasn’t defending him Bo, just the Halo universe.
Have to agree Star Trek never watched any of it. Halo played all the games seen the movie(Between you and me kind of was a bore) and enjoyed the sets
With the rest of the lemmings…
I’ve watched Star Trek, but i dont even see the point, a bunch of alien nonsence in my opinion. But I will agree that there’s better video games than Halo.
“[b]unch of alien nonsense”, but Halo isn’t?
Yeah, ok.
sorry, i but i liked star trek in first grade, and when i told my friends that i liked it, i almost never saw those guys again, so now i like halo better. besides almost every kid in 7th grade that i know loves it. and when in Rome, do as Romans do.
Great ideas, Star Trek and Steampunk. How about Cyberpunk, adventure sets, city scape, trolly cars, normal cars under 12 dollars that are not cop cars.. Newsroom set, box truck or moving sets
Expanding the city theme sounds like a darn good idea to me.
More buildings, less cars.
Take for instance the new City Museum heist. Cool idea, but why does is come with three vehicles? How about increasing the size of the museum, and no vehicles?
Do you understand me, TLG: $20-40 play sets with no vehicles!
I concur.
I like the idea of a Cyberpunk city scape as well… Just wanted to put that out there.
ANY cityscapes would be cool.
Yeah they would be rather cool. I don’t much have the funds to go into such a thing, but if I was to adapt an additional hobby I’d most likely jump
on that like a gazelle to a lion.
That’s why the sets need to exclude extraneous minifigs and vehicles. Minifigs add about two bucks to the cost of a set, per unit. Leave out the 2-3 minifigs. Add the equivalent vehicle elements to the size of the set and you should get a decent building for thirty bucks or so.
Burn!! Nice call back for sure.
I’m largely happy with the themes they have. But I would like to see a theme, any theme last a bit longer. Like two years before bringing in the next theme. Maybe one less theme a year as there’s so many to pick and choose from.
I’m hoping they stick with the Superheroes theme, that one has endless possibilities, given the roster of characters from either DC or Marvel. And they have done Ninja Turtles this year! So I am in heaven.
I’d also like to see some sets “stream lined”. Some sets like the Winter Village Cottage have gone up in price because of the number of increased bricks due to the additions of so many smaller builds. Take a couple of those smaller builds like the snow plow and igloo and have them as part of another set or better yet, make it so the Winter Village theme has more affordable smaller builds that can be picked up for those of us wanting to create one when we’re on a budget.
For my daughter’s sake, I hope they’re keeping Friends. She’s really loving that theme and into it.
As Bo said up above, I’d love to see more cheaper sets due to LEGO having a build that is just the car and not too many extras for the sake of extras or taking that Museum concept and expanding it with fewer if no cars. Police cars should be gotten from other sets. And there’s plenty of them as is.
Plus,superhero ares are a very urban setting, so it’s almost like expanding the city sets and includes lots of innocent civillians.
Gosh and we thought that Stewart was a dick.
It’s TEOTWAWKI. Everyone’s gonna be a renis pinkle.
a what wrinkle?
Say it out loud a few times.
Dont listen to him!!!
Do it!
I’ve always liked the Castle themes. More of them wouldn’t go unappreciated. On the other hand, I don’t buy Lego anymore, so my opinion shouldn’t count for too much, since I’m not going to support the company for their actions.
Military Theme – Like real world Military, then you could always do Historic Military as well, the range of vehicles, playsets is wide open, and by the way BrickArms, and the like are the demand is obviously present. LEGO of course would never do this, which is why the secondary markets are so popular.
Lotsa luck.
I know that TLG doesn’t like to do conflict, at least not real life conflict. That’s why they’ve often made aliens the bad guys, at least for their non-licensed themes. I’ve sort of run with that by decking out my humans in BrickArms, BrickForge, BrickWarriors, etc., and left the aliens to be the bad guys.
One problem I have with TLG is that their offerings have become more and more minifig-centric. Like the vehicles, every set has to come with at least two minifigs. I already have more than I need. What I really need is more brick to make buildings.
Maybe just a zombie outbreak theme, like in this comic? Except cool sets and no Brickarms?
And AC, yeah, Inez is kind of rubbing it in, but I can agree with her. People far away should see what’s happening in… wherever this is! Plus, Murphy shouldn’t just smash Brent’s stuff.
Brent was putting other folks on the line, and not just his. Another man might have shot him in the knee and left him for the zombies, or cut his hamstring, if noise discipline is an issue.
i dont really care for people whose names are Brent, my dads name is brent and hes a total ass as well
I have the same problem with name Lisa
How about a Roman theme?
Im trawling through my memory banks and I cant remember them ever doing one?
Could have some great sets there, could even set it up a little bit like Asterix & Obelix and have Roman sets and Gaul/Germanic village sets…
And it would be all different enough that it doesn’t just feel like a re-hashed castle type theme.
Some cost effective city theme buildings would be nice…. city would look weird with just and Airport, Fire station, Police station etc… I know they have the big modular buildings… but they are $300+ in my neck of the woods… how bout something smaller… internet cafe, convienience store, pharmacy, a pub? Heaps of options.
In the meantime…. I’ll just build my own city buildings
Sets along the size and scope of the Creator buildings, with options like you suggested, would be cool. How about a big city newspaper stand, or a corner market? The sky is the limit.
Would like that and someone on cusoo is working on it (http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/9068).
But a star trek theme…. I’d buy all sets without thinking about it.
I also would like a sort of circus theme or maybe an amusement park-theme… something completely different from the rest here, but I think kids would like it…
A new theme…
OK, time for a bit of shameless self promotion.. a few weeks ago my buddy Pixel Fox and myself responded to an open call for ideas from LEGO and we worked on designing a complete new LEGO theme. Our concept is called “The Earth Marshals” and we designed a couple of vehicles that you can check here. The theme is designed for 7-9 years old boys, so yeah it features some flick-fire missiles and mostly vehicles (sorry Bo!).
While our intention was never to start a controversy around ecology, the discussion around this idea did become a bit heated on the Eurobricks forums. Some people (mostly US folks?) considered that we were trying to deliver a “left environmentalist” message, which I can assure you was not our goal.
Anyway, we have not heard back from LEGO so I don’t know if they liked the idea…
Just reading the first paragraph, that comes off totally big-State and Left-leaning. I mean come on, corporations are bad, but multinational globalism is good? Tell that to the Chinese and Indians, whose state-sponsored pollution is worse than anything you’ll find in the industrialized West.
Sorry, but I’ve been sore about eco-propaganda in toys since Captain Planet.
The reason I love it is because of the possible items it could include in the future.. Imagine the cool industrial stuff!
But also politically speaking, a kid isn’t going to care what it ‘teaches’ they’re going to care what they can make out of the parts. I hated and still hate Harry Potter, but by god I wanted one of the sets for the parts.
LEFTIST GARBAGE ‘GARBLEGARBLEGARBLE’
I laugh at the idea of people actually getting angry about that. I mean really? I think it looks pretty dammed cool man!
Thank you Calicade! This could indeed give us some cool parts too, starting with variations of the Hazmat suits!
Red hazmat suits sporting a bad A symbol? Count me in.
Red hazmat suits sporting a bad A symbol? Count me in. I also took the time to look through the other pictures on Pixelfox’s stream there. I love the ideas and how each part is explained. Makes it feel less like it is a one sided thing. “Whaling harpoon, good for activist too” totally something I’d say if I had a whaling harpoon on a boat. What activist army goes with out a trained dolphin? OR a trained dolphin army? Just sayin’.
I expect them to develop a restaurant theme for LEGO City, like five-star restaurants or simple truck stops. It’s kinda hard to believe it since the city has it’s own space program but not a place where a minifig can grab a bite.
A few gaming related sets wouldn’t hurt either…
Taco truck?
That’s a vehicle I would buy.
A food service truck.. on the to do list now.
Post pics.
Everytime I read this comic…
I want Murphy, or someone to tell Inez to leave if she doesn’t like it (or something along those lines) the pot shots at every chance is going to wear some nerves thin very quickly, the groups I suspect… but mine too
Yes perhaps Murphy made a silly call in smashing the tape before having a proper discussion about it…. but being a silly annoying petty cow about it is just not going to work out.
I know what you are doing Dave…. Inez is going to be the annoying character that most people hate… and she is going to survive for a long time
Until she and Stewie get their teensy little brains eaten.
Well, they are splitting up at the moment…. so both wont get eaten by the same mob, I think Stewart is ok… little bit silly, but he is a 16 year old boy, kind of comes with the age… Inez gets my vote for brain consumption!
I find it interesting that Brent hasn’t said or really done anything since finding out it was broken by Murphy… it’s Inez jumping up and down. Wonder what is happening there… might just be he is a camera man and is used to his “reporter” doing all the talking… or might be something else.
y’know the comic did say that there would be ”love” in this comic, but theres only 4 girls in this story are inez, cheyrl, barb, and i cant remember the hamzat chick’s name. So who’s going out with who?
BricksoftheDead.com proudly supports all lifestyles. So you can’t just look at ratio’s.
We’re going to have an interesting interview coming up with Dave. It’s gotten side tracked due to his phage but its coming.
If anyone has any questions that they want to ask about this site or his dietary habits…email me zombiemutts@gmail.com
Why has nobody posted at all?
Anyway, an Assasin’s Creed theme might do us some good.
Why has nobody posted at all?
Anyway, an Assasin’s Creed theme might do us some good.
Pokemon and/or Resident Evil.
While Mega Blocks did do Pokemon for a bit, it would’ve been better if LEGO did it. The only problem with that is that Pokemon X and Y are supposed to the new games for the series and I was hoping to swear off Pokemon as 1; I am getting too old for it, 2; I STILL haven’t caught them all in 1 game and it is therefore a tease by Nintendo to attempt to do so, and 3; the starters for X and Y, are these REALLY Pokemon?! {facepalm} Amateurs. There used to be just 151 and now it’s up to 649!
As far as Resident Evil, too gory. However, if there were a set (say a set based off of RE4 with a villager minifigure included) with Leon S. Kennedy in it, I’d want to get it.
Im back!!!
Well, we got minecraft and back to the future confirmed, with portal and zelda in review. Maybe bring back Studios and Johnny Thunder?
Wait, TLG has licensed Back to the Future ? Seriously?
Well, we got minecraft and back to the future confirmed, with portal and zelda in review. Maybe bring back Studios and Johnny Thunder? Definatly some collectable fig packs of marvel and dc comics. We NEED a lego War Machine minifig. With some flick fire missles, of course…
Ugh, flick-fire missiles on a minifig?
Anyone see the montana EBS zombie warning that aired? EBS was hacked yesterday.
So, seeing as though Dave is sick…. I thought I’d give us something to jib jab about
Here is a random discussion point.
Would boxing gloves have any lasting impact on a zombie? Ignoring all the downsides to boxing gloves (unwieldy, heavy, cant grab anything etc)
If you have ever been hit properly by a proper full size boxing glove then you know it has some impact and your brain essentially rattles around in your skull… So apart from the obvious impact of being able to knock a zombie over etc… would a boxing glove work?
Would it knock them out? Can zombies be knocked out? Would you be able to do enough damage to take them out?
*Disclaimer* Mad.. does not in anyway endorse using boxing gloves in a zombie apocalypse… you have been warned!
Boxing gloves… I prefer Kevlar gloves and brass knuckles* combo.
*The brass knuckles are part of a pair of mugs I bought, whilst it would be illegal for me to break the mug part off, I doubt that would matter if I was having to go hand-to-hand with a zed.
I like the restaurant idea
He probably should have found another way to resolve it, but that camera was a damn liability. Distractions in a crisis can kill, like they did for Shannon. You can relax when you’re somewhere secure, but when you’re out and about you need to stay alert.