Zombie Cliche Lookout: What Else You Got?
When disarming a prisoner, it’s pretty important to be thorough. If you stop patting a guy down when you find the pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants, you miss the knife in his boot and the throwing star he keeps in his wallet (what can I say, dude’s a secret ninja).
And if they start giving you attitude, go ahead and assume that they’re hiding something. Murphy here, protests giving up his rifle when he know it’s not loaded, probably hoping Lou (or whoever) doesn’t notice the cleaver that’s also hanging off his backpack. Don’t put up with it.
About this Episode:
So I’ve found it a little difficult to vary my shot setup too much when I have weird lighting like this. A lot of my shots end up with light creeping in on the areas that are supposed to be dark, which is not cool. I am by no means an expert photographer, so if anyone has any suggestions, please don’t be shy about letting me know. I’m wondering if a lens hood might help. Unfortunately, I don’t have one to use to test (and I’d kind of like to know if it would work before buying one; yeah, I’m cheap).
Discussion Question: The “Real Bad Guys”
This one was briefly mentioned in recent comments, and I’d really love to build off it. The question is, who do you like as the real villain in zombie stories: the actual zombies, or is “man the real evil”?
Personally, I think either option can be done well, and usually isn’t. If I had to pick one, I would have to go with the zombies. Yes, mankind has the capacity for unbelievable evil, but we’re watching/reading the zombie story to see some zombies, right?
I’ve got a question for Dave:
I’ve been reading the http://www.legostargalactica.net/LGwiki/index.php?n=Races.OldOnes page and was wondering if Dave couldn’t see a way he could implement something similar into BotD. It would make for an interesting twist on the zombie plague if there was a species out there that was capable of resurrecting dead people whether they had turned or not. Deep ones are capable of curing many incurable diseases and they wouldn’t necessarily have to know the cause of zombie infection to cure someone of it or resurrect them. 😀
What do you reckon, Dave? Deep ones don’t necessarily die like other species do, they’d therefore make for an excellent plot device if you really hadn’t meant to kill someone off or just wanted them silenced for a time! 😀
Like most plot devices that work well, you don’t use them often, just when called for in the storyline, or to make it go in a different direction! 😉
My mistake, ‘Deep’ should be ‘Old’, sorry for any confusion, Dave! 😀
I think it’s a cool idea, but not something I’d want to use for BotD. I’ve always liked to keep the zombie “source” – for lack of a better term – completely opaque. I’ve never really been satisfied with the explanation, myself. I’m generally happier when it’s not revealed.
Well, I think you could still keep it opaque, and not reveal anything, and still make the Old ones concept work! 😀
i can just see this guy now, he’s probibly just some blow off teenager with his “daddy’s rifle.” It’s the bait and switch.
Maybe so, maybe so.
Have you read much on child soldiers?
A kid with a gun can kill you just as dead as an adult. I don’t give special passes to kids in a WCS. Point a gun at me, and I tend to take it mighty seriously.
Very good point here, Bo
I like the light leaking in, even if it wasn’t your intended effect. If it was, even better.
I didn’t use any of the photos with the bad light leakage. I doubt you’d like those 🙂
I think that zombie fiction shows again and again that it is the survivors that we have to worry about.
“Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.”
-Werner Herzog
Zombies remove the civilization. Survivors reveal the chaos and darkness.
That’s a hell of a quote right there. Herzog’s an interesting dude.
Cool quote indeed!
Murphy has to be doubly careful here: If this guy dies and turns into a zombie without making any noises before he turns he’s basically going to have to reflexively grab a weapon in order to shoot the zombie before it attacks, and he’s going to have to realize all of it in as little as a split second! 😀
I wonder what Monday’s strip will bring? 😀
This one is not really on topic but I was wondering where everyone gets their zombie knowledge from? Up until three months ago I had only seen two zombie movies (most receant dawn of the dead and I am legend), and had not read anything zombie related. So of course 95 percent of my zombie knowledge comes from video games like dead rising, left for dead, resident evil, dead island, and lollipop chainsaw. I hope this doesn’t make me an outcast here on BOtD. I still feel like I know a lot about zombie but maybe some of you might think video games isn’t a good source. But with that said I’ve now read world war Z and am almost finished watching season 3 of the walking dead and I’ve picked up a couple more zombie books to read in the future. Hope to see some comments on this
He really wants Murphy totally disarmed, doesn’t he? Of course, the fact that he didn’t just shoot him when he walked in the door is kinda promising, I guess?
Question:
Well, I guess it depends on how you define “bad guys” and “villain”. I wouldn’t really consider zombies “bad” in the moral sense, since that implies a capacity for rational thought that they just don’t have. Ditto for “villain”.
If you’re just talking about the main threat to our “heroes”, of course, it can be either. Other humans are obviously much more dangerous than zombies one-for-one, but a big enough mess of zombies can still be quite deadly if they can get to you.
You see, zombies are not really evil. Usually, these are braindead people with one thing on their mind, the need to feed. So they don’t know any better. However, to put a evil human in the mix is stupid. So I’m gonna have to go with zombie.
Not saying I don’t like the way they look, I love it, but I think that if that is Lou and they get supplies they may get a new outfit. It would be cool and a bit more realistic, even in a zombie apocolapse. Just don’t destroy all the figures you already have to get them a new look, and just a suggestion. I love this comic! Too bad I have to go away on wendsday for a week. But it’ll be waiting here for me. Great job and keep it up!