Zombie Cliché Lookout: Home Improvements
Zombie flicks are typically divided into two groups: road movies and siege movies. The former follows a group of survivors as they’re on the move, bouncing from place to place looking for safety, food, the government… something. Zombieland is a good example of the zombie road movie. The latter involves a group of survivors who are in one place while hordes of the undead close in on them. The classic example of a siege film is, of course, Night of the Living Dead. There are, of course, hybrids that start off as one type of movie and end up as the other, like Shaun of the Dead.
In a siege movie, the survivors are generally in some sort of civilian building, generally a home, but sometimes an office or some sort of place of business (The Winchester tavern, perhaps?). Those buildings are generally pretty poorly equipped to withstand a zombie attack (hopefully building codes will be updated to address this issue soon), so the survivors are left making quick and dirty barricades out of tables and doors. It’s always a good time.
About this Episode:
I really went back and forth a lot on using the reverse face for “Dad” when he laughs. Sometimes it looks perfect to me, other times it looks more like he’s afraid, or angry. Damn lack of emotive faces. And, on the subject of the double-sided faces, I had to substitute out a regular old smiley face for “Dad” when we look at him from behind, like in the first panel of this episode.
Discussion Question: Barricade Your Home
The emergency broadcast network worked, and has given you plenty of time to get out of Dodge, or to barricade your home and make a defiant last stand against the army of the walking dead, Alamo style. Assuming you have some plywood, 2x4s, screws, nails, and assorted tools, what do you do to turn your comfortable home into an impenetrable fortress?
House has lots of windows, if they get past the walls, well I am screwed, specially my bedroom and other bedrooms. My greatest chance is in my parents bedroom. It has some windows but the walkin-in closet is pretty much a straight line into their bathroom. There, my last stand would be held. I am always thinking in how to see the walkers without them getting me so I plan on being front duty and my dad on the back of the house. Biggest concern is if one of the neighbours ram into the front gates. Then it would be a parade of zeds. I am pretty paranoic when it comes to being safe. So yes I have thought this out pretty much. Specially after the Military coup in 2009. That is when wise dad bough his first set of guns.
I have another question for the one interested, maybe Dave has made it before I joined the blog but is still something I’d would like to know. How many of you have fired/owned a firearm( rifle, shotgun, pistol, ext.)?
I know that Dave has shot .22 but that is not proper enough to kill a zombie as Bo stated. And do you feel it might be the best way to defend yourself(zombie wise)? I know it is off topic but something I’d like to know. Thanks if you leave feedback!
unless paintball counts I’ve never fired a gun…
I’ve fired a few:
12/20/410 shotguns
.38, .44 pistols
.22, 30/30, 3006 rifles
As far as owning goes, I only have two: A very old break-open .410, and a Remington 870. Neither of which are here since I don’t really have a good place for my gun safe.
Well Dave, you seem to have some experience, an Bo as well! Thanks for the feedback I. Was expecting a yes or no answer but it went beyond and after reading all this!
Yes I have fired some guns, most being 9mm and .40 S & W, but my Dad owns an old Ruger Mini 14, which s quite heavy but very precise. I have also taken clases with the IDPA instructors. And Bo the way you describe stuff is pretty much the way you must roll for gun business.
I grew up in the country. Damn near everyone has a gun or ten. My dad didn’t really hunt, so we didn’t have much in the house. I mostly shot .22s and shotguns as a result. My experience with rifles in very minimal.
I once carried a gun on the job. I won’t get further into it than that. I work on the other end of things now, not a fighter, but a healer. I am still a part of the “gun culture”, though. That is bred into me. I’m a gun guy. My wife is a gun gal (but didn’t grow up with them). My kids, well, I already have .22 rifles for both of them; and they’re two and five.
I get serious about it by applying a critical eye. I don’t care for marketing and hearsay. I don’t care about brand or trends. I care for what works. The truth is, most gunowners couldn’t hit a bull in the ass on Sunday morning. The “tacticool” and the “doomsday preppers” are usually worse (no offense meant to anyone here).
My recommendation is to get one rifle, one handgun, and one shotgun, and dry-fire the hell out of them. That’s the cheapest, best practice. Take a class, then dry-fire to reinforce what you learned.
Dave, I must say, the comments and question for discussion will will start to overshadow the comic, if you’re not very careful. 😉
Hah, yeah they just might. But the discussion is great, so it wouldn’t be too much skin off my nose.
And no worry about offense here. I think getting proper training and practice is important to anything, from shooting a rifle to fixing a sink. When it comes to guns, I’m definitely an amateur.
The truly funny thing about all of this?
My wife encouraged me to get into LEGO, because it’s “healthier” than my work emergency preparedness.
And somehow I ended up here…
And just keep the quality of the comic at a high level, regardless of how well the comments go, right?
I need my regular zombie fix.
That’s hilarious, Bo.
And yeah, I’ll definitely keep shooting for quality. If it’s not worth doing right… you know?
As far as firearms go, I have sufficient for my needs. I’ve owned quite a few and fired some more.
If you’re interested in getting into the “gun culture”, I have some advice: First, avoid about 99% of gunowners’ advice (ironic, isn’t it?). Decide if you want to start your education with handguns, shotguns, or rifles. Then, beg or borrow as many different examples as you can, to hold, feel, etc. What you want to do is get a feel for the weapon. You might not even do any shooting, at first. What you want to do is take an introductory shooting class from a competent instructor. Do not get your uncle/cousin/friend/coworker to take you out shooting. They likely have too many bad habits; and it’s harder to learn from someone you already have a relationship with (too easy to strain it, too hard to take it seriously). Your state rifle and pistol association should have a list of instructors.
After you’ve taken your class, you’ll be at the beginning of a long road. From there you can work on things like dry-fire practice, maybe competition or hunting.
A firearm is an important component in a layered system of defense (as Dave mentioned in the discussion question). It’s not a panacea or a magic talisman to ward off evil; but it is the great equalizer.
If you have questions, let me know. We can make it a topic for future discussion.
Speaking of classes and trainings, have you ever done the Appleseed thing? I’m thinking I’d like to do that, maybe next year once things settle down a bit around here.
I was big into Appleseed before I went back to school, got my Rifleman patch at my third event. There is not better instruction available in the fundamentals of riflery. Again, it’s not the end, but the beginning. Once you learn your positions and how to dope (“dope” means sight-in) your rifle, you can move on to the fun stuff (shooting things that are really close and really far away). It’s more efficient to learn the fun stuff after you’ve mastered the basics (costs a lot less in ammunition and time).
Cool thing about Appleseeds is that since 99% of the shooting is at 25 meters at simulated targets, a .22 caliber rifle is a perfect trainer. Save the centerfire ammunition for training at longer ranges.
Well that settles it, I’m putting this on my to-do list for 2013. Now I need to get a rifle.
If you can borrow or beg a Ruger 10/22, they make decent trainers. Their magazine and bolt releases require a lot of practice. I wouldn’t take one to an Appleseed without learning its mechanism thoroughly.
Oh, how about one of the new Smith and Wesson .22 caliber AR15’s? That would be just the ticket for training, cheap ammunition and a manual of arms that duplicates the AR15.
10/22 is what I was thinking since it seems like everyone owns one, and they are reasonably priced. I haven’t seen the S&W rifles. I might have to check those out.
The 10/22 isn’t perfect as constituted. At the very least it needs sling swivels. If you google “liberty training rifle” you’ll get all kinds of information on improving the Ruger 10/22.
That all seems quite reasonable.
I sadly must admit to not being all that trained in firing many fire arms… I only have natural skill with rifles that I believe I may have inherited from my mother. Our fire arm cache only consists of a .22 that we recently put an unfocused scope on, and a .38 that sucks shit..
The best I have is friends, and a lot of upper body strength… Oh and knowledge.. I GOT DAT KNOWLEDGE.
Yeah, I think windows are going to be everyone’s problem.
Woot! Window’s aren’t one of my problems!
I am sorta screwed, all the rooms in my house have windows, although they are all about 5 feet off the ground, but my back door, it is very week, so most of the fortifying would be on the back door, then some on the lower halves of each window, and some on the front door, the room for the last stand would be the 2-part bathroom(one is bathtub, other is toilet/sink) I believe that we may have enough old dead appliances to make some metal shielding on the windows and back doors though… We could probably last awhile if we had adequate supplies, that is, unless the ENTIRE population was to become zombified and come at us all at once.
If the entire population was zombified, I think we’d all be screwed.
Windows 5 feet off the ground would probably help quite a bit. Zombies aren’t known for their grace.
yeah… I live in a place where they made it mandatory for all houses to be built with a foundation a while back, and my house has a 1-2 foot foundation. And by entire population I meant the entire population of where I live, it would be like, just over 4 thousand zombies.
I have the same issue as lemonman up there. Too many windows. It’d be better if we barricaded the front garden and set up the car in front of our livign room windows. Then we’d wood up all the others and try to make very little noise so the Zeds have no reason to come down our driveway. We should also go grab some bows and arrows so we can silently protect ourselves.
It seems windows will be the death of us all…
Well, unless you happen to be a moleman.
Yeah, windows are great when there aren’t any zombies, so naturally our houses have loads of them. But when the zombies do show up… no so great anymore.
I like the idea of barricading the property instead of the house proper. Cool idea, Digihuman.
Well I have have the perfect protection. As I stated before I have a concrete wall. But it’s not complete concrete, it’s like a concrete wall with rocks in it. Plus I have an RV in my side driveway with food and since there is only one entrance in and the same entrance is the only way out I’d block it with the RV. Plus I was shooting handguns the other day and was a great shot at a bucket at 10 yards ( remember that’s 30ft and my brother couldn’t hit it half as many times as I could) The calibers were 9mm, .357 magnum revolver with 6″ barrel, 45 ACP and a 38 Super. If I have to get out of dodge I would go to my ranch. Great place.
Man I want to go shooting again. It’s been ages.
Sounds like a solid plan. The only problem is that your RV is used as part of the barricade, so it’s not as able to bug out in.
True but if necessary I’ll break down my neighbors wooden fence with my truck.
Right on.
Well it depends, are there a lot of zombies? If yes, Bugout for me. No, then fight.
We’re ok as far as creating a barricade here. The biggest weakness is the sliding glass door in the back. If I could wall that up, we’d be good. I have a fire ladder if I have to make an escape from the second story. I would not want to stay here for long, certainly. I could hold off the hordes until we could implement our plan. If we had to stay in complete isolation I would have to secure a water source. It’s hard to keep enough water for a prolonged siege on hand without your own well and hand pump.
That’s exactly why my family’s plan is to head to my parent’s house. They live in the middle of nowhere. No hand pump on the well, but there’s a generator.
There is a physical limit to the depth a hand pump will reach, The number escapes me. For electric pumps, a noisy generator is sure to flush the beggars, looters, and general undesirables. I’m not a great fan of PV in the long-term (the life of the panels is too short). Wind turbines are a bit noisy, but not like a generator.
Have you investigated alternative power for the house and pump?
Not yet, no. I don’t get up there terribly often. It’s a 3.5 hour trip with good traffic, and our weekends have been at a premium lately.
The nice thing though, it that they live in a very isolated area. The town the live in has, maybe, two hundred residents. Many of whom are elderly. So I’m thinking the noise from the gennie, while certainly undesirable, wouldn’t be too bad. There’s also dense woods on three sides, so I’m thinking that would baffle the noise to an extent.
I guess it depends on what exactly attracts zombies. It seems reasonable to assume that they would have senses comparable to a normal human and dont have any superhuman ability to sniff out potential prey. Also, do they wander aimlessly or just kind of hang around the place where they were zombified. If I’m right on these two points then it makes sense to head for the sticks. I have a little cabin in the woods with plenty of land for hunting and or raising food. A sparsely populated area mean fewer humans around to get zombified and any that you kill in the process arent going to be getting replaced by new ones wandering in. Might be kinda hairy for a while but long term access to food, water, and firewood trumps defensibility in the long run assuming that zombies aren’t drawn to the presence of humans. BTW Bo, a hand pump on a well will only draw to about 25feet. I would boil any water that didnt come from a deep aquifer anyway. Seems likely that any surface water or shallow groundwater is likely to become contaminated by zombie stuff anyway.
Hey Damage,
Good thoughts here. I like the way you’re thinking through how to defeat the zombie’s prey-mechanisms. Very cool.
I don’t think I’ve seen you post here before (my apologies if you have), so welcome aboard!
Long time listener, first time caller so to speak. Love the comic. Always nice to know that I have good company in my sick obsession with the undead.
Hah. Well come on into the pool, the water’s perfect.
I have that rifle.
Which, the M1 Carbine?
yeah,
I made an order on G.I.Brick about a week ago.
If this is a storage room, I must have met Mickey Mouse recently! 😀
If there’s a personality to beware of, it’s one which has sudden mood swings from serious to funny! These guys just went down another slot on my ‘to avoid’ list! 😉
The religious zealot thing didn’t drop them to the bottom? lol
Not quite, they have to be an insane religious zealot to make it that far, so far he seems to have some semblance of normality about him! 😉
I’m screwed as far as windows are concerned. I also live in somewhat of a hole, which doesn’t help much. My house is pretty big as well. Luckly, my family has plenty of land (mostly woods) so I can think of quite a few escape routes. But, yea, I’m screwed if I get trapped here. Now, as far as weapons are concerned, I have only shot a hunting rifle. So not much experience there. I’m hoping all those years of fighting with wooden swords and plastic lightsabers will pay off.
Question:
Well, it depends on exactly how much time “plenty” is I guess. Boarding up the windows is obviously first on the menu – personally I doubt they’d break as easily as they tend to in films, but it’s still probably the biggest weak point.
Extra bolts on the front door too – back door was replaced not too long ago with one of those fancy modern ones that lock all along the frame, but the front is an old one with just one lock.
One important thing, is to leave some small windows about 5-6 feet from the floor. Traditionally in a siege, you starve the defenders out, I don’t want this, I want to be able to kill the zombies that are out there so they don’t trap us inside.