Zombie Cliche Lookout: Going Underground
Ever since George A Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead in 1968, there has always been the idea that going underground might be the best way to stay safe during the zombie outbreak. Cooper argues, and a lot of people say convincingly, that the basement is the safest place in the house. Of course, he doesn’t get his way and we all know how that worked out. But imagine for a minute if everyone listened to Cooper, and barricaded themselves in the basement. It’s very possible they would have been safe from, and perhaps even undetected by, the zombies upstairs. But what about Cooper’s little girl?
We all know what happens to her: she dies, reanimates, and killer her mother. If everyone was in the basement when she reanimated, what might have happened. I have a hard time believing the Coopers would be okay with someone destroying her, which means we’d likely have some violence. And in all that confusion, what do you suppose the odds of the zombie girl biting someone might be? I’d say they’d be pretty good.
About this Episode:
I have to say, I like the way the background looks through the window on that door. It makes a nice little gradient. That’s just a piece of blue construction paper that’s slightly sloped. I’m pretty happy with the effect.
Other News:
Okay everyone, that’s the last of Bricks of the Dead for a week (unless I manage to find time to do a Christmas bonus). I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday.
Discussion Question: Barricade the House or Retreat to the Basement?
Let’s say you’re in Night of the Living Dead. For whatever reason, all the survivors have left the decision to you: should you barricade the house, or should everyone pile into the basement? What sort of contingency plans do you have for either a breach upstairs, or the reanimated Cooper girl downstairs? How will you deal with the strong personalities?
Thanks Dave for another year of awesome BotD work… I promise there are some more set reviews from the me in the pipeline.
Have a safe and happy holiday season everyone 🙂
Thank you! I’m looking forward to more reviews.
I’M BACK EVERYONE!!! MY EXAMS ARE OVER!!
TYPO: she dies, reanimates, and KILLS/KILLED her mother. Dave, I think you need to work on that. 🙂 Oh man, it feels good to be back. How many of you noticed I wasn’t on this site?
I kinda don’t celebrate Christmas.. but still, have a safe holiday season everyone, cooped up in blankets, watching zombie movies at 5 in the morning, drinking high caffeine energy drinks, getting so hyperactive that you feel like killing everything with a chainsaw… I think I’m going too far…. right?
Typo alert: Title: subterranian–>subterranean! 😉
Whether or not the Christmas comic goes up, I wish Dave and his family and friends a safe, Merry, and zombie-free Christmas and a happy but not overly-celebrated New Year!! 😀
I also wish the other commenters who regularly frequent Botd the same! Merry Christmas to one and all! 🙂
Fixed, thank you sir!
I would do neither! As some of you know me and my friends have a bug-out point at this giant storage complex
(triple-layer barbed wire fence, wrought iron gate, generators, a few vehicles and a electricity-free refuel station. But the only lock is a simple $5 padlock)
But if my girlfriend and I were swarmed
(unlikely because we live in a farmhouse, but it happened in night of the living dead)
if we were swarmed, I would actually go for the upper two floors of my home. The staircase could be blocked by a couch and a couple chairs, and the kitchen/bedrooms/my gun cabinet are all upstairs. The basement just has one of my computers and my workout room
(and my lego room, that would be a problem in an outbreak)
The main floor more or less is just the floor that looks the nicest for when I have people over. The top floor/attic have all the good and necessary stuff. (other than my lego in the basement)
So you’re going for Option GTFO?
Backing one’s self up into a corner just gives me the vibe that ‘Yeah we accept we’re about to die”. At least on the first level there is a possibility of escape, and if one finds themselves surrounded by mindless beasts? The best answer is to escape through a window or something. Make a run for it, because trying to resist the siege of a creature so perfectly build too siege is stupid. So I’d stay on the main floor and find a way out before I get too surrounded.
And I love this image too by the way, I can only imagine Sam know’s about these tunnels because he takes them home from work every day. Afraid he might accidentally get into a confrontation on his way to the car.
Well said, Calicade.
Two problems with buttoning up in a basement: You can’t fight from it; and you can’t escape from it. With a nearly limitless supply of freshly-animated dead, the basement is the last place to be.
I know that the survivors in NotLD were limited in their capacity to fight, and had a lot of interpersonal issues, to the point of breaking the group; but I am well-suited to fight zombies from the second floor. I could even improvise roof access from inside, if I had to (not my first choice; but it would allow another avenue of escape in a siege situation.
From the basement all you can do is starve to death.
A lack of escape route would be my problem with the basement as well. In the house, you could retreat upstairs or down, or try to break through the scrum. In a basement you have one entrance on a right angle at the top of a staircase. Not a good situation.
I think securing the ground floor is the best bet, with room to move up or down as needed. From the top you can fight your way down. Fighting up, that’s got to be harder.
None of the above: I would run to the woods. It is the easiest and best option when it comes to time and materials. The only problem would be getting through the zombies…
So, you’d rather leave your supplies in the house, and run out into the woods with nothing?
Just trying to get your choice. Could you explain your rationale to me?
Thanks.
Grab essentials: water, food, ammo, etc. and get away from the hordes is my main thought. Unless your closest neighbor is over a mile down the road or you live in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere, chances are the Zeds are closing in. Everyone makes their own choices, Bo, and that means they must deal with the consciences as well, and I would be willing to take that course of action as I believe that would keep me safe. That’s my thought about it, it just seems to dangerous to stick around sometimes.
Or do you think it’s too out there and that the odds are against it? I’m willing to here your opinion on my idea, because as they say, two heads are better than one.
The problem I see is that I simply can’t carry enough supplies to make a go of it. I can’t carry enough food, medicine, ammunition, cooking gear, shelter, etc. to make a go of it on foot. Staying or going is always a possibility; but leaving the known for the unknown is tenuous, at best, and suicidal at worst. Most folks that seriously consider leaving know where they are going, and have supplies there waiting for them. The best ones even have prepositioned supply caches along the way (consider off-freeway storage units to storing things at friends’ houses to literally just burying things along the side of the road).
Where you stand depends upon where you sit. I have a family to consider. They like to eat, every day (imagine that?). If it was just me, I would be more willing to concentrate wealth, carry cash and precious metals, for example, and buy what I need when I get where I am going.
Upstairs, remove said stairs, have really long ladder, use to neighbor’s house.
Rinse & repeat. Works for 90% of area I’m in. Might work in 40% of the downtown area for “shopping” matters.
And as I learned on an online rpg always repair & test long ladder or suck up the problems!
Btw love the comic so far, more variety than most zed-head flicks & mashes.
If they were the NotLD zeds, I would take a couple of the best fighters arm them walk outside and clear a perimeter while the rest can start the barricading of the farm house. Armed with spear-like ice picks we should be able to take down any major threat with the exception of a LARGE herd. In that case we bug out. Never can tell how much weight the floor will take until it would cave in. Upstairs is an equally bad idea considering all it takes is one small fire. Besides anything over a 100 zeds will collapse any home even one made of brick and cement.
It’s too bad that melee weapons made for people do no good against zombies, and vice-versa. I’ve held for a while now that the best purely anti-zombie weapon would be a spontoon with wings and a sharp cruciform or triangular point, a purely thrusting weapon.
Still, it would take a HARD thrust to penetrate the skull, scalp, sinuses, meninges, etc with a hand weapon, in my opinion. Then again, I’ve never tried it, either.
Just thought I’d take the time to wish everyone who follows BOTD a very Merry Christmas and that everyone has a very happy New Year.
Here’s to another year of zombie shenanigans Dave!
Merry Christmas Dave, to you and your family.