Episode 633: Take It or Leave It

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Dave

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Zombie Cliche Lookout: Character Compromise

One thing that I really love about zombie stories is that they tend to focus on regular people. Sure, there are some zombie stories with a military focus, but those just don’t work for me as well. I’d much rather see civilians as the actors in the story, forced to adapt to the new way of the world or die. From a narrative perspective, I think it’s absolutely fascinating to see how much people can harden and change when they need to. It’s also fascinating to see those who can’t.

About this Episode:

While I certainly didn’t intend it, this guy ended up looking an awful lot like Marvel’s Stan Lee. My intent was to add a significantly older character to the mix, not to recreate a celebrity. I hope that’s not too distracting.

Other News:

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m going to be taking a vacation starting on Monday. But don’t worry, we’ll still have plenty of content. Evan has been kind enough to put together an excellent comic that I’ll be running for the next two weeks. Since the first episode is a title page, I’ll likely through that up on Sunday. From then on, you’ll have a new page every workday.

The best part is, that this is a lengthy series. Shortly after Bricks of the Dead returns to it’s normal schedule, we’ll be offering up the whole thing as a downloadable PDF.

Discussion Question: Military Protagonists?

I mentioned above that I favor zombie stories that focus on regular people, although I certainly make exceptions (I loved the first Day by Day Armageddon, for instance). I have a feeling, however, that a lot of you would likely disagree with me; there have been a lot of suggestions in the past about adding some military characters, after all. This makes me wonder, what do military characters add to the story that people like so much?

8 thoughts on “Episode 633: Take It or Leave It”

  1. Typo alert: “through that up” How messed up is that danged spiel chequer of yours, Dave? 😀

    though–>throw 😉

    • *through, even

  2. I googled Stan Lee, and after looking at the pic Google came up with, I have to say it looks like an uncanny resemblance! 😀 I think his name should have either Stan or Lee in it, but preferably not both! 😀

  3. Being shot to death by Stan Lee amid a zombie invasion is certainly an origional ending for a character in a zombie invasion.

    Excelsior!

  4. I saw that and all I could think of was Johnny Knoxville’s “Bad Grandpa” LoL

  5. Here’s my “Next on the Bricks of the Dead” thoughts : Granpa is the father of Tara or a remaining relative. Tara appears to be “simple minded” (like the Sarah characters from TWD the video game from Telltale) and doesn’t realize what’s going on around her. Granpa just can’t “daddy” her and can only try to interact with other survivors to protect her… I could be spot on here… Or way wrong…

    About military in Z stories… I guess you need some at the beginning to “set the stage” but I’m not considering “all military vs Zombie” to be a good story… Or maybe a military group gone bad trying to make a living by hunting down and robbing other survivors.

  6. he looks like Stanley lol

  7. Awesome bad grandpa!

    Usually the military/militants types are the guys that start the dead problems. Plus the military is too big to work in a zed world and needs the chains they are tied to. The supply chain, the info chain, the technology chain, some the emotional/spiritual chain, and the heaviest chain that ALWAYS fails in the story setting: The chain of command.

    Militants are just too over zealous and confidence filled.

    Oddly though I think a diligent military coward/drop out, might at least help people and have an easier time to survive in such a world.