Episode 214: Protocols

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Dave

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Zombie Cliché Lookout: We Have a Policy

This is one that I wish more zombie stories would do. The characters need to have a policy for dealing with potentially infected survivors, and they need to stick to that damn policy no matter what. All too often we see quarantine procedures ignored and breached, rules bent and broken. And damn near every time that happens, we get an exciting new vector of attack for the zombie infection.

Anyone remember 28 Weeks Later? A fine enough zombie flick (even if it pales in comparison to the first). The military had London pretty well under control. They were restoring power, water, and other services. Life was coming back to Great Britain, and it would start in the former capital, newly cleaned and sanitized of the infected. That is, of course, until someone broke the quarantine rules, got infected, and started the whole mess over again. And then they made it even worse by allowing a carrier to get on a helicopter and escape across the channel.

Follow the rules, kids. At least the zombie quarantine rules.

About this Episode:

I’m really having a lot of fun with Sam’s facial expressions. It’s nice having a couple of characters without any distinctive facial features (hair, glasses, etc), since that gives me the most latitude as far as emotive expressions go. For some reason, I use this most with Sam. I guess I just figure that he’s the type of guy to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

I wish I could do this more with Stewart, but those sunglasses of his make changing his expression all but impossible. Maybe those will get broken or lost one day.

Discussion Question: What are You Eating?

Remember the practical skills question? Several of you listed cooking as one of your skills (I would as well, actually). So what are you eating once the zombies show up? Do you have food stores? Are you a good scrounger? Do you know how to take that canned dog food and turn it into a gourmet feast?

38 thoughts on “Episode 214: Protocols”

  1. Well Dave since I haven’t bought any food for the apocalypse, but when I was 12 I was in something called 4H. Its about animals, fresh produce (in my area), and sports like skeet shooting. I raised pigs, even though most kids want pigs it’s a hellava job. I wanted to participated in skeet shoot but never got a chance.

    • Shooting skeet is a good time. I can’t speak to raising pigs. It looked like a lot of work in Young Guns.

  2. Since I know what goes into canned dog food, I would never turn it into a feast. Fuel for a bonfire, maybe, but definitely not food for people! 😀

    • I swear I saw an esophagus come out of a can of dog food once.

  3. I haven’t much of an idea for cooking… I do all types of breakfast concerning eggs though, but I doubt that chickens, a skillet a microwave and other household appliances would be a every day use.

    • When my family buys a house out in the country (we’re a few years away from this) I’d like to get a few chickens, just for the steady egg supply. I eat a ton of eggs.

  4. Well, down here in south Louisiana we have some good hunting & fishing. I figure once we’ve eaten our way through our ‘hurricane’ supplies I could go round up something. I’d use the buddy system when hunting, however since hunting & fishing require you to concentrate on your prey. It’d be sadly ironic if you let a zombie sneak up on you while you stalked something else. Also, if I’m staying in one place long enough I’ve got a bit of a green thumb.

    • Gardening seems like the way to go. It’s a bit of work, and ties you to a place, but if you know what you’re doing, it will provide ample food, most of which can be preserved relatively easily. We’re still eating tomatoes from last summer’s garden.

  5. When things get desperate enough, Fido goes on the menu.
    But if things don’t get that bad, there’s plenty of stuff in the wild that are edible and don’t require much effort to find or prepare, you just gotta know what they are, where to find them and set aside civlized notions of what “edible” is. For example, you can eat clover, and it’s fairly nutritious, even though most gardeners only see it as decorative at best and a pest at worst. If prepared into a kind of te-like beverage, dandelions are also consumable and I’m told are good for weight loss, yet are almost universally regarded as a simple weed to be eradicated from perfectly (and unnaturally) manicured lawns.
    Also, a lot of bugs are great sources of protein and nutrients, but most civilized people would balk or gag at the thought, little knowing that many foods contain additives derived from insects, most especially food colorings.

    • I’ve had dandelion tea before not bad. Do you eat the flower part, the leaves, stem?

      • Eat the greens.

        The only problem with dandelions is the possibility of herbicide contamination. I would not eat them out of any yard, or off the side of the road.

        Regarding the bucket, is that the chamber pot? >.<

        • The bucket is never really addressed in-strip. I’ll let people come up with their own uses for it.

          Huh. I might have to try a few dandelions, just for grins.

        • Make it his chamberpot in the next strip. Have him complain about the accommodations. :-p

    • darg, I think a better wordage there would have been

      give up on thinking what is edible, and think, what is eatable.

      vast difference between edible and eatable, I mean, a monkey brain is eatable, but most people wouldn’t concern it as edible.

  6. Trapping, herbs, garden, fishing.. Honestly nature is your food source.

    • Well said. I notice that hunting isn’t on your list. To time consuming?

      • trapping is hunting without the use of a bow or a rifle or such, it is just setting traps, which sometimes are fairly simple, yet effective. It also saves on ammunition for the zombies.

        • Thank you l3m0nm4n..
          Hunting is also kinda dangerous for some people, and is actually recommended against when in a survival situation that you don’t have full control of. Trapping is still a great way to get food… So yeah save the ammo for more important things.. Like self defense.

  7. I divide my food storage into “lines”. Line one is stuff I can eat in the short-term, to get us over the hump. If I have to go help the neighborhood clear rubble after an earthquake, or fill sandbags for a flood, that’s what we’d eat. It’s things like MRE’s, Mountain House, things that need no refrigeration and none to minimal cooking. The second “line” is the moderate-term storage. It’s things like canned goods that we rotate through regularly. Then there’s the long-term stuff, the staples that will last twenty years or more, wheat, beans, rice, canned freeze-dried meats and vegetables. Extra garden seeds (although I do practice saving seeds fro season to season), and water purification systems.

    When you get serious, investigate a condition called appetite fatigue. The concept is that without variance in diet, some would rather die than eat the same foods over and over. Variety is not just a “nice to have”.

    • “Appetite fatigue” sounds pretty damn reasonable to me. I know rice and beans with last ages, but I’m going to get damn sick of rice after a very short time of eating it three times a day.

      • The important thing is the spices. A man can live on packaged food from here ’til Judgment Day if he’s got enough rosemary.

        • Just don’t preach at me.

  8. I’ve got my US Army Field Survival Manual, which lists all the edible plants in my region (with photos), and teaches how to set snares and field-dress game.

    I’ll rely on my canned goods while developing my skills, then work with local game (rabbits and ducks are very common in my neighborhood, for starters, and I’ve heard squirrels aren’t bad) and plants (I’ll certainly stop pulling up dandelions and throwing them away; dandelions can not only be a good salad vegetable, but you can even ferment them to make alcohol, which is useful in a variety of situations).

    • Mmm… dandelion whiskey.

  9. Um… I love Sam’s face in the last scene. Hahahahahahahahaha!

    • Hah, me too. So petulant.

  10. I’ve read that during the Depression and through WWII there was no game to be had at all in a lot of places in the country. If you’re relying upon shooting a deer to feed your family, how many other people on the block have the same idea? Even if they’re not good hunters, they’ll have all of the game spooked inside a week. Jug fishing, traps, and trot lines are a better option (since they don’t require active monitoring); but the fish’ll be gone pretty quick, too, unless you live way rural.
    Small livestock are a good option, if you have the people to watch them, and can keep the starving sheeple neighbors away.

    • Yeah, I would imagine huntable animal populations would disappear in very, very short order.

  11. that discussion question…huh, guess that’s the ONE little area I’d find myself dead in. I’m a picky eater, and have standards, so odds are I’d lose to starvation VERY quickly. Though, if you offerred me a biscuit, I’d bite your hand off.

    …no really. XD

    • Okay, so no one offer Digihuman a biscuit.

  12. Hmmm… I have food storage…. I’d do scavenging. I’d learn to hunt or starve. And then learn to clean that critter or starve….

    I’d bone up better on my knowledge of herbs and plant lore. As said before, I’ve got the basics. Enough to get me started, probably enough to get me into trouble. Or stay out of it if I didn’t learn fast or improve those skills.

    • “Enough to get me into trouble” sounds about right. I’d have to be awful hungry before I started eating wild mushrooms, because I’ll be damned if I know what’s edible and what’s poisonous.

      • Yeah that’s very subtle in identifying edible and drug… Plus mushrooms provide very very little protein what so ever.

  13. I’ve always thought various forms of pasta and potatoes would be ideal if you can grow them, as they’re filling and can be easily prepared in a number of ways.

    • …You don’t grow pasta…

  14. I may invest in this. You know… just in case:

    http://mewanty.net/survival-seed-vault/

    • Heirloom seeds are cheep. Just buy them and can them yourself. Cheaper than a purpose-built “vault”.

  15. Bloody hell, Sam. You’ve fallen in with a group who clearly know what they’re doing, and likely are well equipped. Count your blessings.
    I know I wouldn’t enjoy spending a couple of days in an empty room myself, but I’m smart enough to understand the importance of a quarantine period.

    Question:
    I don’t really know the best way to get food long-term. I always try to have decent amounts of shelf foods like tinned and dry food, but that’s not going to last that long, maybe a few weeks. That’s a couple of weeks to get the lay of the land and figure out a new food source. I like my odds though; if the outbreak gets bad near me, then that’s less people for the food to go around, and there should be plenty to go around from the stores. If it’s light, then there’s still plenty of people around and I don’t have to figure everything out myself. We’re farmland around here anyway, so we could probably grow food for everyone.