Zombie Cliche Lookout: Don’t Mess with Her
You will often find that the character who seems like little more than a pushover, actually has a wealth of hidden strength just under the surface. This doesn’t just apply to zombie movies, or even horror flicks. It’s a fairly universal trope. Generally speaking, this character will go through a good chunk of the story – possibly the majority of it – without doing anything terribly interesting. And then something will be too much, and push them over the edge. Then, you’d better look out, because they’re about to unleash their long-simmering fury.
These characters will typically look pretty harmless, often nerdy or excessively feminine. Although occasionally they’ll be some big brute who refuses to use violence for some reason, just to keep the trope fresh.
About this Episode:
I worried that I made Sarah a little too scared and mousey, so I had to do an episode to show that she’s not some typical horror movie pushover female character. The face in the last panel is – I believe – from the roller derby Collectible Minifig from Series 9. I got a couple extras of her just for that face.
Discussion Question: Worst Place to Be
What’s the worst place you could potentially find yourself during the beginning of the zombie outbreak? For this question, I’m mostly talking about places you might reasonably expect yourself to be, like at the mall or out of town on business. Nothing too exotic.
For me, it would probably be at my office. I moved last year and am now about eighty-five miles away from my work. I am fortunate enough to be able to telecommute most days, but I’m still usually in the office one or two days a week. If the zombies showed up while I was at work and the roads clogged up, it would be an incredible struggle to get back to my family.
My worst place to be would be my destination to go after the outbreak hits. Let me explain. The worst location I could at would be my grandfathers hacienda. Even though this is my idea of the safe heaven, it is useless without the proper tools (Ammo and guns) to protect ourselves. This hacienda is also about an hour and a half from the city, and this is at 5:30 AM when everyone is asleep, I can’t possibly imagen how long it would take just to get back in town in the case of mass evacuation. Also, the signal for phones is terrible there, since not many people live in the area, so calling home just for them to get the stuff and GTFO of the house is not an option.
Oh, I like this one Phantom. It’s always interesting to look at how your “safe” place could potentially be a hazard under the right circumstances.
Lol I’m sad again no matter what she does she and the baby are already dead:'(. But moving on to the discussion question I believe that a really bad place at the start would be a hospital, because of all the sick/infected people turning and causing chaos, also this was shown a while back with officer Skinner I believe.
The hospital is an absolutely classic here. Look no further than 28 days Later and The Walking Dead.
Yeah! Take as many with ya as you can!
I think the worst place for me to end up is my school. Despite the myriad of potential exits and the two armed SROs, I don’t see it lasting in the event of a zed attack…No way to barricade the glass doors, the only good sniper’s perch doesn’t have a view of the stairs to it, and I don’t want to die at school. -_-
“I don’t want to die at school.”
Hah! I hear that.
I remember when Gulf War I was ramping up. CNN was the only 24hour news network at the time and this was their first war so they were going nuts. They were interviewing this hard as nails looking Marine captain and Vietnam combat veteran about how he thought American troops would do in actual combat and if his men were ready. You could see the “Im on TV and need to behave myself” persona drop away from this guys as he responded in rough, clipped sentences. I paraphrase here “You can never tell until the fighting starts, Ive seen the guys who everyone thought were the toughest in the unit fall apart like little kids and the and the guys who looked more like accountants then soldiers turn into freaking Rambo and save a whole squad.” I alkways make it a point to remember that guy.
This is awesome right here. Great story, Damage.
So I’m good, then?
Presuming the usual long slow turn from bite/scratch to an undead monster-I’d have to say an airplane. Can you imagine, stuck in a tin can flying high in the sky with no weapons and an ever increasing amount of zombies!!!
Oh, an airplane would be horrific. That could make a great short story.
Look no further than here!
Good lord, how did I forget about that one? I think I need more sleep.
I enjoyed that story. Not sure if it was a virus brought on board by a sick passenger or the airline food that turned the passengers though.
« You bet your ass » that is one lovely idiom, we don’t have an equivalent in French. Good job with the face expression!
French needs to get with the times!
Alice Cooper, Depeche Mode, Marylin Maonson, 9in Nails concert…or a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show…maybe Comicon. Why? It would be impossible to tell the actual zombies from the cosplay crowd.
Hah! Nice one Damage.
I love that fourth frame! The face, the way she is holding the pipe, it just works so well!
Worst place to be stuck in an outbreak for me is…. anywhere that is unwalkable back to my family. My little family went to Europe late last year for a month, I couldn’t go… imagine if the zombies rose then… depending on how wide spread it become I might have never seen them again.
Thanks Mad..
I’m on board with your thoughts on not being able to quickly get to your family. It’s a horrifying thought.
The worst place for me to be in is in the bathroom! LOL but serious that would be a bad way to go.
Zombieland had a whole thing about that.
On the highway between towns, for sure. Assuming we don’t get hit by some crazed driver fleeing the carnage and/or being attacked in their car, we’d still have to survive getting off the road (not always an easy task in most areas), finding shelter (again, not easy especially when most highways in my area run alongside wide open farmland or unclimbable rock faces) and then deciding whether or not to turn back or continue to our destination, since we wouldn’t know which town was more dangerous. All while dodging zombies, more cars trying to avoid the roadblocks and scared, confused survivors who may want to attack us for something we have that they think they want.
On top of that, unless we were coming back from going grocery shopping, we’d have to find food and water. Since most people don’t exactly carry even a day’s worth of provisions for a short trip to the next town, just finding enough water to get to the next town would be problematic, especially if the stores along the way have already been raided by looters.
Really good thoughts here, Darg. Being on the road would be a hell of a challenge, not the least for not having anything on you to help you survive.
Is it possible for a person to “survive” a zombie bite in your comic? Many people can “survive” lots of deadly illnesses.
A agree with Sir Marius, a school would be horrible! Teachers would be telling students to stay, but bitten teachers would slowly turn…..(and to a zombie, kids are like snacks D: )
Well, we don’t really know mibattles101. It hasn’t been addressed in the comic, so far the few people who have been bitten have died, but that doesn’t necessarily mean bites are always a death sentence.
I vaguely remember some movie from years back about some kind a plague outbreak that was wiping out a city until the hero doc discovered that the only population that was unaffected was pregnant women. Something about all the hormones and changes to the immune system that come with pregnancy. It might be an interesting story thread if there was some kind of population genetically immune to being turned by the bite. Or to make it even weirder it could be anyone who was on a particular medication or had a particular condition.
That sounds super familiar, Damage. I’ll bet I watched it at one point.
That’s a cool idea!
But, just because your immune to the disease, doesn’t mean your immune to being eaten by a zombie… yes you might survive them biting you if you can get away… but if they get hold of you and want to chow down…. don’t think anyone would be immune to that 😀
Very good point, Mad..
It may be this film you are thinking of Damage
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455407/?ref_=sr_1
which is a remake of a 1973 film of the same title. Not so much a zombie movie but a good film none the less.
Dont think so. The new one is too recent and I would have been in pre-school for the original. Something in the early to mid eightys I think
That didn’t sound right to me either (although I did enjoy the remake).
*facepalm moment* the female lead was actually misdiagnosed with having the same symptoms as the ‘infected’ in the Crazies! It must have been to early in the morning when I posted that 🙂
Hah. I forgot that too, but it’s all coming back now.
There are a couple places for me. Work is always a bad one. Being a remote technician I am usually in between towns and hours from my family. However, that would make for a good story. Others would be any place with masses of people. Superbowl would be awful. Trapped in a dome while others start turning and only a handful of exits. Not good.
Any place far from home or crowded. I completely agree.
I just got Half-Life 2 the other day, so i love that Sam picks up a crowbar! For me, the worst place would be a swamp or marsh, seeing as how vision and mobility would go down, plus, what I am sure will become a meme, ZOMBAY GATORZ!!!
Ooh, a swamp is a good one. Classic scary place. Tough to move. Poor visibility. Lots of critters. I like it.
Any sporting event
Bad – Zombies
Worse – Zombies and watching the Lions lose.
Great question and may I add terrific set for this room. You have every tool you own on that wall?
Damn near all of them (leaving off duplicates, or course).
Where I live, there’s probably thousands of thousands of people just living next door. So, I would have to deal with thousands and thousands of zeds.