Zombie Cliche Lookout: What Was That?
People in horror movies are different from people in the real world in a lot of ways, but perhaps the most important is the fact that they’re much, much stupider. You can tell this because they tend to ask a lot of ridiculously stupid questions (others might point out that people run upstairs to get away rather than out the door, but I’ll chalk that up to being panicked).
What kind of stupid questions, you ask? The biggest one is, undoubtedly, “What was that?” These people are living through the zombie apocalypse, and if they see/hear/smell something, they should automatically assume that it’s a zombie (substitute maniac killer, evil clown, etc for other types of horror stories). And if it’s not a zombie? Then it’s either another survivor (50/50 change that they’re also a bad guy), or some sort of red herring that’s there just to get you to let your guard down for a minute. And when your guard is down? Zombies!
About this Episode:
See that last shot there? The one where the brake lights are lit up? I had to redo that one three times. The first time I forgot to put in the background. The second time I realized that the brake and reverse lights were in a different order on the right and left side of the vehicle. And the third time is more or less the charm. I’m not super happy about the fact that the road looks like it sort of disappears just in front of the van, but I tell myself that they’re on the crest of a hill and I feel a little better about it.
Discussion Question: Dumb Character Moves
What’s the most annoying dumb move you can think of? I use this example all the time, but mine has to be the guy in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead who drops his steel crowbar in favor of a croquet mallet.
I almost didn’t see this episode, but I looked at the time, hit refresh, and it flipped over from Wednesday’s episode to Friday’s! 😀
I wonder if these guys will actually stop to check on Clark? 😀
Did it not post at midnight?
its posts for me at 10:00, its weird but im always happy that i get a tiem that fits hte sceduele
Must be a time zone thing. I’m in Eastern, so I’m assuming you’re in Mountain?
yea. of course i live closer to nevada than in the mountins, it still counts as the Mountain time sone though.
That’s okay, in Michigan I’m not really all that close to the east coast.
It usually posts for me at 2:00 PM local time, but for some weird reason it didn’t do that this time around, I had to manually hit ‘refresh’ and it then loaded. I’m not sure what it is, and unless anyone has information which would suggest something is not right on my computer, I’m going to leave well enough alone! 😀
you got to hit refresh to see the new webcomic, im usually the one who gets here 1st on the sunday comic,
The croquet mallet is probably the winner… on the other hand, it’s actually pretty funny to watch Michael look from crowbar to mallet, then make the absolute worst decision.
Shooting off the lock on the gas pump in Night of the Living Dead might come in a close second.
The fact that he actually thinks about it is what bothers me most. Just have him pick up the thing, then get surprised by a zed and drop the crowbar. Still irritating, but not nearly as much.
heh, its also a good thing that its not from News 6, heh, dont tell the monkey that i said that.
Hah, my news station was always channel 9 (Action News!), and I believe it predates A Monkey’s fine strip.
ive read the whole thing, of course your webcomic seems to be the only good one thats still running, the dude person hasnt updated in almost 2 monthes. and A monkey hasnt updated his strip for mothes as well, thats why i usually stick around on this website. but my comic has 180 hits, 4 suscribers now, and 17 strips
It seems like this has been a rough year for Brick Comics. Lots of hiatuses and whatnot.
hiatuses? nevermind, i got 160 beiwers in my first webcomic in my 1st month. I think that im doing just fine, i now have 5 suscribers. and heres the link http://hungergames.thecomicseries.com i nerdly memorized my webcomic link.
Ah, it is our intrepid news crew… and they’ve got a nurse. I’m sure Clark will be fine now.
Stupid moves…. that mallet for crow bar is a classic. I don’t have too much else to cite that I recall off hand. Just the general lack of logic, people who clearly have low I.Q.s and are nymphomaniacs deciding or unable to clearly think things through.
I’ve to expect that now of movies, like if they don’t have a dumb move happen, they can’t get a story moving because a character is rational and uses logic.
“I’ve to expect that now of movies, like if they don’t have a dumb move happen, they can’t get a story moving because a character is rational and uses logic.”
This is kind of my thinking too. The writers aren’t good enough to wring tension and drama out of smart people, so they populate their movies entirely with idiots.
I knew it! I even said on the other page
Indeed you did.
by the way dave, have you read the book The Dead? its about this infection where anyone over 16 was infected, and the only kids there are in England. its a good book.
I haven’t, no.
you should,
Wasn’t that a Star Trek episode?
i dont know anything about start trek, except that the ship is called “The Enterprise” and theres captin spok, but thats about it.
Where the road “runs out” could be a large shadow falling across the road on a moonlit night, the kind caused by trees or a road-cut. That would likely mean that they’re driving north, since the sun also rises in the east.
As for stupid characters, there are so many tropes here, most notably the “Too stupid to Live”. How about the recurring helpless female? I hate that.
And every single character in the original Night of the Living Dead? Idiots.
My favorite is the liberal/hippy “doesn’t believe in guns”. They usually get what’s coming. 😉
My favorite is the liberal/hippy “doesn’t believe in guns”. They usually get what’s coming.
That’s a great one right there!
Yeah, that’s my favorite love-to-hate character, especially in zombie/disaster/apocalypse movies.
H8OR!
All that hates keeps me warm.
Dropping a metal crowbar for a— Dammit Dave!
Sending a dog over to deliver a sandwich instead of using a remote controlled plane, or a really long stick.
People are stupid. There is no other accounting for it. I see it all the time, especially when it comes to self-defense/weaponry. Logic goes right out the window. If it didn’t, no one would study tae kwon do (or, as I call it, “take your dough”).
I’ve never taken a martial arts class, but I’d like to. Krav Maga specifically.
Not that I think I’d be able to tear our people’s still beating hearts or anything, just as a form of exercise and fun.
indiana jones the temple of doom
For real-life stuff, MMA is hard to beat for two reasons. They train harder (more conditioning, more cardio, more sparring) and they hit harder (because they’re in the ring, going 100%).
When folks claim something is “real life”, I say “show me”. For weapons, I like any of the Filipino arts, plus IDPA and/or IPSC. Again, practice is key.
The only problem with hardcore MMA is that it is aimed at the ring and tends to train one to do things that are stupid in real situations. Take a look at some “Ultimate Fighting Champions” on Youtube sometime. My favorite is the one where they take them to a Marine training ground and these totally jacked guys can’t climb a rope and square up with one opponent by turning their back on the other. I also like this other one where a MMA guy takes down a robber. Thank God said robber tried to wrestle with him and didn’t just pull a knife with his free hand while the MMA guy had his face tucked into the guy’s shoulder and couldn’t see what was going on. (Yes, the MMA guy was being nice and trying to take the guy down without hurting him, but he was still being stupid about it.)
That said, like you said MMA is excellent for conditioning, or rather MMA requires significant conditioning. As the above examples show though, I wouldn’t rely on it for real life situations. Weapons are key for real combat, and most MMA programs only touch on weapons if at all. How can one consider themselves a “Ultimate Fighting Champion” if I can kill them with a pool que or butter knife without breaking a sweat?
Side-point: Martial Arts, Arts of Mars, Roman God of War. Not Arts of Mars, Roman God of the Ring. War requires weapons and training to deal with multiple situations. MMA is NOT martial arts in my opinion, nor for that matter is most martial arts today. If you go back to the traditional arts of the Samurai, the European German/Italian systems, the traditional Chinese stuff with shields and shit, those are real martial arts. Argueably, so is the modern day art of flying a fighter jet, but not MMA.
There is a lot there, a lot to digest and rebut. I agree with the point, that MMA is not entirely suitable for the street. I would argue that its practitioners are more ready for the street than their traditional martial arts counterparts. Who would you rather find in a dark alley, a mixed martial artist, or a black belt in tae kwon do? To me, that’s no kind of decision. Much of that is due to conditioning, especially full-contact sparring.
I agree that most martial arts, traditional and modern, do not take weapons into consideration. The notable exception is the Filipino arts. One tradition among their arts that has always fascinated me is their starting with weapons. With Japanese, Okinawan, and Chinese arts, the masters force their students to study for literally years, and in some cases decades, before teaching their most effective techniques. Ass backwards, if you ask me. The Filipino arts start with the blade on the very first day, and move to double knife, sword and knife, and then to the more esoteric sword and shield, spear, archery, and others; but they start with the knife, the most practical and ubiquitous weapon available.
I posit that pistol craft is the quintessential American martial art. It’s roots are quite literally American. The majority of its practitioners are similarly American; and for the most part it has real-world application. It is entirely suitable for the kind of interpersonal conflict in which we will be as survivors, zombie or otherwise.
It is my opinion that the knife, short stick, and handgun are the cornerstone of our training, adding less-lethal hand-to-hand and the rifle (from contact range to 400 meters) as time and skills develop.
Yes, I agree that 9 times out of 10 a MMA guy will be more dangerous than some guy trained in TKD. (Though there are some TKD guys I have met I would flee in horror from and wouldn’t bet against in a fight between them and an MMA guy. Consider also the possiblity of weapons, which my TKD group did do some basic training in.)
My main point was simply that MMA is often overhyped and isn’t the “ultimate martial art” by any stretch of the imagination. Further, in the event of a zombie outbreak, many MMA guys will not do well if they have trouble climbing a rope and can’t deal with multiple attackers.
Oh, and there’s also a nice Youtube video of a guy who did unarmed martial arts for years (I believe it was MMA) and therefore he knew how to use weapons. He flails around for a bit with a spikey wall-hanger before slicing open his shoulder. People like to take the phrase “A weapon is merely an extension of a warrior’s body” out of context and assume unarmed training makes you capable with weapons as well. I assume I don’t have to tell you how stupid that is. I have some experience with this as I trained in TKD for years and then started looking into the German martial arts of the 14th-16th century and realized all my TKD training didn’t even scratch the surface of what a real martial art was, weapons and unarmed.
That’s the sad thing about it: It’s not that Tae Kwon Do or any other commercialized “martial art” is necessarily that bad, but what we have today for many martial arts schools in America is very watered down and amounts to baby-sitting for kids and light cardio for adults. Not necessarily bad, since some training is better than none and many a unprepared mugger has gone down to such training, but it really is unfair to judge the “real deal” based on our modern examples. I learned long ago when I was doing TKD that if I wanted to be any good, I had to work at myself. Anyone who showed up and did only what the instructor said to wasn’t going to be any good…
More random babbling: I took Jiu-jitsu for a short time, which I was assured by many was a “real martial art” and would prepare me for a fight in a way my “pussy” TKD training would not. It turned out that the instructors and the best student were the only ones I would have been afraid to face in a fight, and I may have been able to win anyway despite my lack of a “real martial art”, because this “real martial art” very obviously did not have much experience with a striking art. (None of them could kick worth a damn when I got them to try it, and punching only seemed to happen when someone was playing the bad guy we had to defend against. A fight between me and an instructor would probably have fallen to whoever moved first.)
Just giving an example of how people can look down on an art like TKD while glorifying something that really isn’t any better.
This is of course something MMA would be better than, since they would practice both striking and grappling and thus wouldn’t be surprised by someone like me suddenly snapping a kick at the knee or one of the jiu-jitsu guys trying for a take-down.
Holy hell.. I was just concerned with some one getting their sandwich.. Come on now!
Teehee.
In reality this is just Bo arguing with himself.. Just added a B to the end of Bo.
Hey, I love to monologue and babble randomly for hours. ;D
hey its gene, ted,and barb
Indeed it is.
nice to see other people besides clarke (not hatin on clarke or anything)
Hah, I’m trying to bring together some characters here, since we have several different arcs going on, I feel like I’m neglecting certain people.
hey dave u should try 2 change da character bios 4 clarke
Clark and a few others.
@Dave: Regarding the “break” lights in the “About this Episode” section, I’m pretty sure even Americans call them “brake” lights! Not sure if the insurance companies would agree though! 😉
Oops. Got that fixed.
As for the dumbest character moves I’ve seen, there was this one movie I don’t recall the name of where a guy gets help from some secret agents in order to declare his love for some lady he secretly admires. I seriously don’t know anyone who needs help that badly and they pulled it off rather badly too! 😀
Wow, my webcomic has taken a real beating out of my time, but i guess that its only natural.
If you think you’ve found another survivor, you’ve got to try to help them. Don’t be stupid about it though; keep the engine running and stay at the wheel. The ones who get out, keep an eye out so you don’t get surprised. Get him into the truck ASAP and then go.
Question:
Probably the dumbest move I can think of is when characters let their guard down. You want to stay aware of your surroundings all the time while out and about. I think we all remember Shannon, right? If they’d just kept their eyes open, she’d still be with them.
Oh, and I’m glad to see that Barb has calmed down a bit. I know she was particularly freaked about Jeff because he was so far turned, but she was still very obviously in shock when they first met her.