Zombie Cliche Lookout: Die with Dignity
Surviving is a tricky thing. If you’re really dedicated to survival, that means you’ll do absolutely everything in your power to do so. In most stories, that means compromising your morals in some way. This is usually done in such a way that it counts as character development. If a person starts a story as a non-violent person who volunteers at a homeless shelter every weekend, then it’s quite a change if they end the story killing others to save their own skin, and refusing to share their limited supplies.
But there’s another way surviving at any cost can challenge a person, and that is by compromising their dignity and pride. A proud man won’t beg, and that means a proud man might not live through a situation where someone who’s less concerned with pride might.
About this Episode:
I’ve been noticing a lot of noise in the comic lately, which I had blamed on accidentally leaving my camera at a higher ISO than normal (I generally shoot at either 100 or 200). I corrected that issue (or non-issue, if you will), but there was still a bit of noise showing up, so it was back to the drawing board.
As you might recall, I recently tweaked my lighting setup by getting rid of my light tend and adding diffusion paper right on my lights. I assumed the issue then was that my new setup simply wasn’t bright enough, so I tweaked that a bit by rearranging the lights and adding a couple of brighter bulbs. Finally, I outputted this most recent episode with less compression in Photoshop.
I think that did it. I hope so, anyway.
Other News:
I’m going to be taking Monday off. Apologies for this, but we’ll be back to our normal schedule for Tuesday.
Discussion Question: Zombie Noises
Here’s a nice simple one for everyone: what sort of noises do you like zombies to make? Should they be the low, mournful moans of Romero movies? The screams and wails from28 Days Later? Gutteral gibberish a la The Walking Dead? Or even “Braaaains…” like in Return of the Living Dead.
There’s a line I’ve heard in movies often: “Do with me what you will. I care not.” 😀
That’s a much statelier way to do things.
I would like to combine moans of Romero and Walking Dead
That’d be pretty interesting.
Regarding Sam’s line in Panel one, he does have that nailed right on the head. They knocked him out and brought him there. What does she expect for kidnapping someone? A medal or something? 😀
Hah, very good point. I think she saw it as a rescue; he wasn’t thinking clearly and they did what they had to do.
Let’s hope her zombie lawyer believes that half as much as you do, if it gets to trial! 😀
Hah
Realistically, they would be silent. They are dead, so they don’t need to breath. And to moan, you need to take a breath. Logik!
That axe is getting too close to comfort to Emma, and I’ve noticed that Sam is using the same words as Abe like “you’re not going to kill me.” And stuff like that.
I’ve always thought of zombie moans and grunts to be subconscious utterances, similar to when a person grunts when lifting something heavy or gasps after not taking a breath for a while.
In my mind, the reason most zombies don’t register the pain of being shot, stabbed, burned, etc. is because the overwhelming pain of being dead and rotting overrides all other sensations, and the grunts, groans and moans they make is in relation to that.
That’s a pretty cool way of looking at it.
They are dead, and don’t need to breath, but it’s possible that they would do so on purpose for whatever reason.
The face expressions are just spot on for this episode!
Thank you, sir!
All depends on the type of zed. Return of the Living Dead zeds had conversations with the survivors (even the one who really didn’t have lungs). Keep the sounds the zeds make with the feel of the story.
That it does; this is more of a question of personal preference.
About Zombies noises I’m more annoyed by the sounds they don’t make… I mean how can they sneak behind survivors without a whisper and, as they reach them, start grunting.
I like to hear them being excited seeing “food” though. Anything but World War Z (the movie) teeth chattering…
Hah, it is funny how they can become super ninjas whenever the plot calls for it.
I prefer them to be like clickers from The Last of Us. It sounds kinda cool and creepy, but realistic, for their level of intelligence and their restricted motor skills.
Also, a possible discussion question: What would/could stupid arguments (like the argument of spelling things like colour/color) and other issues of that nature do to a group of survivors in the apocalypse?
I might just use that one.
Oh man, those clickers were do f’ing cool.
I don’t mind if zombies make noises (see my reply to Undead Shifted Beef above for why), what irks me is when they make noises that they really shouldn’t be able to make.
A perfect example is in Marvel Zombies when several zombie characters have been decapitated but are still somehow able to talk normally without lungs, muscles or intact vocal chords. That always bothers me for some reason; at the very least, they should only be able to mouth their words and at most they should only be able to use their teeth to do Morse code.
Yeah, decapitated zombies should not be able to make noise. Good lord.
havent posted on here in a while… Hows everyone doing??
I’m doing pretty well; yourself?
Thats good 🙂 and I’m good.
Dave, was there an episode scheduled for Monday? 😀 I’d really like to know what her response is, unfortunately the suspense is killing me! I hope you resolve this cliffhanger on Wednesday! 😉
There was not. I had a long weekend and didn’t have time to schedule Monday’s in advance. We’re back on schedule for Wednesday though.