Zombie Cliche Lookout: One Last Glance
Before putting a plan into action, it’s never a bad idea to take one more good look around to make sure there isn’t anything you’re missing. It’s just as true in the zombie apocalypse as it is right before you leave for a long trip. You never know what little detail you might have missed before (like the fact that you forgot to pack your phone charger, or that zombie that’s half-hidden in the dense foliage).
About this Episode:
It’s kind of amazing how hard a time I had with that last panel. I took a dozen photos before I was happy with one, and then I cropped it a handful of different ways before settling on what you see here. It seems like such a simply shot, but I still had quite a time with it.
Other News:
I’m going to be traveling quite a bit for work for the next couple of weeks, so I won’t be as on the spot with responding to comments. So you guys will need to pick up the slack a little. I know I can count on you.
Discussion Question: What Do You Hate About Zombie Stories
So we’re going a different direction this time around. Instead of telling my your favorite weapon, survival strategy, movie, or zombie-killing theme song, we’re going to talk about the thing that bothers us most about zombie stories.
Mine would be bad attempts at humor, which seems to happen all the time, especially in zombie movies. Sure, Shaun of the Dead is great, and Zombieland was a lot of fun, but that doesn’t means that zombies or the genre in general are inherently funny. What really bugs me is where there really isn’t any sort of just. It’s just a zombie stories with some winking to the audience and breaking the forth wall, as though that’s enough to make it a comedy. I have the same complaint about stoner comedies.
Oh boy that’s a real can of worms…
I think my biggest pet peeve is when they show a zombie pass up several survivors just to munch on the most expendable/ironic/shocking character as a plot device.
Diary of the Dead had an obvious example; the part where the survivors are wandering the hospital in a line and a zed stumbles past the cameraman to chow down on the guy right in front of him made me ask, “Wait, why the hell didn’t the zombie attack the cameraman? Zombies don’t care if you’re recording or not!”
A close second pet peeve is when a character who has been a badass zombie killer and keen survivor suddenly forgets that they’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and lets one or more zeds get the drop on them. In TWD when Andrea was running through the woods from the Governor and stopped by a tree to collect herself, I literally said out loud, “Make sure there’s no zombies behind you!” Sure enough, five seconds after I said that, she got grabbed through the trunks of the tree she was leaning against.
Third is the cliche “zombie breaking out or sitting up out of a graveyard” scene. First off, there’s no way a zombie is going to be sitting up out of a proper grave, what with it being buried further down that most people are tall. Second, Mythbusters tried to replicate several buried alive myths and showed that, even if a living person could break out of their coffin, they’d be crushed to death by the tons of dirt and soil that’s on top of them. A rotting animated corpse would have even less of a chance to get out of that, since they would lack the strength and coordination to break the coffin or dig their way out of six feet of dirt, and that’s assuming that much weight didn’t pulverize their already compromised bodies into gooey pulp. Finally, how would the virus penetrate six feet of earth and get into the airtight coffin to infect the corpse to begin with? Hell, even if it was already infected prior to burial, it would have either reanimated during embalming, forcing the mortician to put it down permanently, or the embalming process itself would have killed the brain rendering it incapable of reanimation.
Oh man, zombies attacking specific characters for no reason drives me nuts!
Things you didn’t know: Zombies love the camera
Hah!
*cough* peek *cough*
I’m annoyed by stereotypes in the ZA. I haven’t seen many movies or shows of the genre, but one I did see showed the geek as the least knowledgeable. (I don’t remember what it was) For whatever reason, this guy was the first to go. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would the dude who had been hoping and preparing for something like this go down before anyone else?
Also, I absolutely HATE when the guy who has all the weapons, supplies, fortification, etc. gets taken out before the unprepared idiots, but that’s been addressed before.
Oops! Thanks for the head’s up there.
Good gripes here, Marius.
Stereotypes are just lazy. I think a lot of people got it into their head that they can “make a statement” with stereotypes, and just use that to justify lazy writing. Definitely an annoyance.
i hate when awesome characters die…
Like Shannon?
No…Not at all….
Okay, yes! D’:
Everyone loves the blond.
Hmm? what I hate most about most zombie stories depict the fallowing:
Most zombie stories involve a band of quasi military types (all male) go deep under ground and last out the Apocalypse. then resurface as the last of mankind to repopulate the earth (which is impossible to do with only one gender).
do the math.
I hate math.
Math is awesome. I wish I was better at it.
I’m having a hard time thinking up examples of that one, CaptainChaos.