Episode 219: Move While You Can

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Dave

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Zombie Cliché Lookout: …While the Getting is Good

Zombies, despite their ability to follow prey to the ends of the earth, can be distracted. Generally that’s in the source of a hot meat, but it’s always possible for them to be attracted to another source of food that looks easier to catch. Whether zombies can actually makes that sort of determination is obviously debatable. At any rate, zombies can be distracted, but if you want to not get eaten, you need to take advantage of that short term distraction as quickly as possible. Yes, it’s tragic that your best friend is now a pile of gory People McNuggets, sitting there moping about it is only going to give the zombies the opportunity to finish him off and come after you.

About this Episode:

Originally, this whole episode was just Stewart and Karen getting up and running away, but I thought that was a bit slow. So now we get to see a bit of Karen’s state of mind after getting bitten and then witnessing her partner eaten alive. Put succinctly, she’s not in a good mental place right now.

Other Stuff:

I recently found a nice new LEGO® news and review site called Groove Bricks. They haven’t been around too long, but it looks like a pretty cool resource that’s starting to take off. Check it out.

Discussion Question: Bugging in or Bugging out?

The zombies are here, with a vengeance. They spread across the country faster than anyone ever imagined, and now they’re in your city. You’ve got time to gather some basic supplies and family before you’re under siege. If you stay, you have access to everything in your home. If you leave, you can only take what you can load into a vehicle, and you might even have to leave some of that behind if the roads get to clogged or there’s no where to get more fuel.

So what do you do? Hunker down and hope you can ride out the storm, or hit the road and try to find somewhere safer? And if you do hit the road, where exactly are you going?

48 thoughts on “Episode 219: Move While You Can”

  1. Sorry about the closed comments. I’m not sure how I managed to do that.

  2. There’s nothing much they can do for Karen either. Personally I would tell her she’s going to turn and that she’s a risk they can’t afford. I don’t see much point in letting her hang out because if she does turn they’d have the additional pain of having to kill her sort of posthumously.

    • “kill her sort of posthumously” – that’s awesome!

      • Yeah, that’s quite the phrase right there.

        • Well, that’s probably the last brilliant quote you’ll see from me for quite a while, most of them get a quick gloss-over and then are forgotten the minute the next strip is posted! 😉

        • You don’t see the point in letting her hang around until she turns? Ignoring that she’s still human at this point, she’s also a medic. She could be very useful if anyone gets hurt, such as for example just having been in an ambulance crash.

  3. Initially I’m in favor of hunkering down. We live far enough outside of town that there shouldn’t be much traffic after the outbreak. We also have a good defensive position, since there’s an emu farm next to our property. Tall sturdy fences, and some emu to eat if/when our food runs out.

    • Emu tastes pretty damn good too, at least the stuff I had a few years back.

  4. Better to fortify and stay put. You’ll be on familiar terrain, with more resources, and you can make raiding expeditions to gather supplies. Traveling through unfamiliar territory, unless you know exactly where you’re going, how to get there, and have good reason to believe you’ll be safer there, would be very foolish in the midst of the zombie apocalypse.

    There’s actually pretty good reason why the authorities are always advising people to stay put in disasters. Choking the roads with refugees (takeout dinners for the undead) is not going to help anyone.

    • Very good thoughts here, Steve.

      My concern about staying where I am is that I living in a pretty well-populated area. Could turn to chaos pretty quickly.

  5. Well, I’d probably go to somewhere less populated…at the moment. I’ll steal one of those Eco friendly cars that run on solar power…

    • Less populated seems like the way to go if you can get there.

    • those eco-friendly cars seem to be much weaker and lighter than others, I personally would get the **** out of the town I live in(I would say, that with even the whole population driving on the streets it would only take about 20 minutes to get out of town) then to one of many locations that are quite defensible(I know a place where you can see the whole town and there are 2 ways to get to it and away from it). I live in a quite rural area.

      • Sounds like you’re in good shape, at least as far as location.

        • yeah, I am not in very good shape physically, but as far as weapons, on the way there, I could stop at my grandparents and get a spear I made there, and maybe a crowbar the height of my little brother (about 4 ft tall) and, maybe, just maybe, my grandparents will let me take either their car or their truck.

        • also I have access to swords an axe and a sword/spear(it looks like this http://www.gungfu.com/media/products/swords/japanese-swords/swords-japanese-swords-ninja-m-conversion-spear-detailed-view.jpg but is two sided and doesn’t have a hollow handle like this one does) but then again, without much in the way of physical fitness, I am going to have to rely on vehicles to travel until I am fit enough to run/walk over great distances(also, due to living in a rural area, I have access to horses). so, I am going to need to improve my level physical fitness, and learn how to use a sword.

        • That looks pretty deadly, but it also looks like it would take a good deal of practice to master.

  6. Lyle & Karen are new characters to the comic, they can’t die now!

    • Too late for Lyle 🙂

    • Karen is as good as dead now…

      • Maybe she’ll do something awesome in the meantime, like make a bomb or cook some bacon.

        • ooh bacon, LEGO should totally make a bacon piece, not a flat tile with a bacon sticker on it, an actual bacon piece that can be held by a minifig, and smells and tastes like bacon…. Sorry I drifted off for a minute.

        • We’re having BLTs for dinner. Jealous?

        • oh gods, so jealous

        • Damn right!

        • I have no idea what my family is having for dinner(it is noon where I live)

        • We usually have a weekly meal plan written out every Sunday. Helps a lot with two working folk and a three year old. It also helps us not eat out as often.

        • Cooking some bacon wouldn’t be very helpful. Lawl

        • Never underestimate the power of bacon!

  7. As far as whether leaving or staying, staying is a safer bet. I know pretty well the terrain around here and have a few ideas of where to get loads of more fast food. Population is no problem for it is around 100,000 and 150,000 people( yes I am aware that is some high density, at least in this country). The bright side of it all is that all houses have walls around the main house due to insecurity levels, and most of them have electric fences( including mine) above the wall itself. That gives us a little extra advantage over the Zeds. At least until energy goes out. No, I do not live in Mexico before you ask.

    • Where the hell do you live, Phatom? I’ve been in some pretty nasty neighborhoods in Detroit, and what you’re describing sounds much, much more severe than that.

      • My town’s population is less than 5000, and I know that there is at least 4 times that many bullets due to having a lot of hunters, rednecks, and cops(at least 4 in my neighborhood), so, yeah, I am feeling much better about where I live.

      • I live in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. It is near El Salvador. Look up Central America

      • I’d rather live in Detroit than here.

  8. I love the face for Karen in the bottom frames. way cool.

    • Heck yeah. I really with LEGO would make more expressive female faces.

  9. I am all about hunking down. My dad is disabled so we are in for the long haul. We live in a cul-de-sac so we get very little traffic. I’d say that was a plus.

    • Cul-de-sac is definitely a leg up on a traditional suburban lot, that’s for sure.

  10. Well.. I don’t live by a city.. The nearest ‘city’ is a few hours away at 65-75 MPH.. The nearest towns are rather small, and one of them is filled with bigot rednecks that most likely all have guns.. So that will take them a bit to all go down.

    Over all I think in order to make sure I don’t get attacked by other humans I’ll most likely get on the road. Zombies aren’t that much of a concern of mine, because the back roads have always been something I’ve prided myself on using.. Even in places I don’t quiet understand.

    If the back roads don’t work then I go straight up path finding and mix and match off road, back roads, and main roads.

    • Now when it comes to having to get packed up and get going? Have 2 boxes of MREs, canned foods, and foods that will take quiet a bit of time or will never go bad if kept in their containers. Will most likely bring fishing polls as well as bows (going to have to find arrows) with us. So our food situation will be okay. I live with 2 trained medical, hands on professionals. So I’m good on any medical issues.. My mother has a sense of business when it comes to surviving so we will adapt rather easily if we all get with that mentality. Good thing I’ve picked up just about everything from her.

      • Sounds like a pretty solid group, Calicade. You need to learn fletching now.

  11. I would gather what supplies I could, say goodbye to friends, try to get them to join me, and then I go out looking for a survival group that will accept me and the people with me, then follow they’re leader and hope for the best.

    • If you talk to your friends well enough, it sounds like you might be able to form your own group.

  12. They need to drop her like a zombie hot potato. Now she’s been bitten…well, she’s a paramedic. I wonder if she has enough time to cut her arm off (assuming lego people NEED to ‘cut’ them off rather than pop them) before the infection spreads, or if it’s too late.

    • I’m not sure whether paramedics would know how to do an emergency amputation. Interesting question.

      • I would say so. Not necessarily something they would normally do, but she should definitely have an idea what to do for someone who’s lost an arm.

  13. Personally, I’d hit the road. My home has a ton of windows and doors, and they would be difficult to keep all under control.

  14. If she doesn’t start moving right now, you need to grab her and pull her. I’m no expert in psychological shock, but I’m pretty sure that if she’s standing, she can still be guided even if she’s not up to going on her own.

    Question:
    This one is kind of a tough one. I live in a town of about 65k, so if a lot of the population turned it could get ugly. I couldn’t handle that many by myself. I could head for my mum’s house a few miles out of town, that might be safer. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have the food stored that I do, however. We’d have to go to town for food. If a lot of people are zombified though, there should be plenty to go around. One thing’s for sure, I wouldn’t want to run long-term, it’s just a matter of picking the best place to fortify.