Zombie Cliche Lookout: Non-Solitary Zombies
When it comes to the slow, shambling zombies of the Romero mold, it’s often been observed that single zombies aren’t terribly impressive or threatening, but they’re also rarely alone. Survivors figure out pretty quickly that if they see one zombie, there are probably a half dozen or more nearby. Even if they take out the single threat without issue, they should be concerned that the fight has only begun.
Once this becomes common knowledge, people could potentially use it to take advantage of fellow survivors. Let’s say they’re trying to gain access to a structure, but the people inside are hesitant to trust them. They could theoretically sit outside and discuss things until they either become comfortable with each other, or they reach an impasse. For those of us without the patience for such things, a quick mention of a nearby zombie or two could expedite the whole procedure.
About this Episode:
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I really enjoyed my long weekend (again, apologies to our non-US readers who had to toil away with a full-length work week). I got a lot of work done outside, had a couple bike rides with my son, and just had a nice time overall.
Discussion Question: Language Barriers
This time we’ve got another good question from BrickVoid, who wants to know how you would overcome language barriers in an emergency situation, zombie-related or otherwise.
I thought this was an interesting question because of personal experience. I grew up in a very, very rural area. Outside of a few native Americans preserving their tribal tongues, absolutely everyone spoke English. When I got older I moved to the Detroit area, where I got to be exposed to all sorts of different languages and cultures. While most of the people who spoke another language also spoke English, that wasn’t always the case.
If an emergency cropped up and you were stuck with whoever was around, you might very well have to get creative with how you communicated with everyone. So how would you approach this problem?
Only one typo this time, in the Discussion Question: zombie-relate–>zombie-related 😀
I do however question the use of the word ‘fight’ in the Zombie Cliche lookout section. Zombies don’t fight, at least not with any reason or objective to it. They just have this primitive motivation, from whatever infects and zombiefies them, to bite people so that those people get infected or eaten by zombies. They probably don’t even grasp the concept of why they’d fight living people, because they’re already dead.
Fixed the typo.
As far as the word “fight” goes here, it’s directed at the survivors, who have to fight through the zombies to survive. The zombies would simply blindly attack.
Two things First my job had me on 12 hour shifts Thursday thru Sunday so only now getting back.
Second I grew up in a suburb which was nicknamed Matza-Pizza because everyone was either Jewish or Italian. Then I moved to Florida for High School and met all kinds of different people so had to learn alot of new cultures.
Communication needs to start with what you can understand about each other. Raising your voice is definitely out of the question. But drawing in the dirt or on paper could work. Hand gestures mean different things to different cultures so might want to avoid them. But the biggest thing should be patience since speed will only led to mistakes.
Excellent point about the non-verbal communication being read in different ways. You could very easily mis-speak or offend someone without realizing it.
I come from a country that has 3 official languages and this question reminds me of a tragic accident that occurred a couple of years ago. Two passenger trains ended up running straight into each other at full speed only because the dispatchers were each speaking a different language. Had they understood each other the thing would have been avoided (here is a an English write up of the story)
So yeah, language barriers are fatal in emergency situations.
This also reminds me of a more funny way to illustrate this point with this video.
Anyway, it is obvious that any form of collaboration requires the mutual understanding of each other’s intentions. I suppose that if you were stuck with people you don’t understand in the middle of a zombie situation you’d either learn super fast or die even faster.
First of all, that video is hilarious!
On a more serious note, excellent point and tragic example about the dangers of poor communication. I honestly can’t imagine having multiple official languages. My company works with a number of Canadian clients, so we often have to support English and French websites, and that’s often challenging. Any that’s supporting relatively small B2C websites. I can’t imagine something that’s actually life and death.
They’re thinking about how to quit their position as ship’s captain if the help on the other end of the radio can’t understand them! 🙂
I certainly would be.
Wow, it is true that Bricks of the Dead has somewhat declined in visitors. I’m still here, and I still frequently read the comic. I also enjoy the entertaining Let’s Play’s and I look forward to seeing a playthrough of TellTales’ The Walking Dead Game. In response, I think that there isn’t really much room for improvement for the site, and that Dave is doing just great on the upkeep of the comic and the site’s other features.
Thanks BeefThief! I appreciate your kind words.
In regards to the Let’s Play, I think I’m going to do another game before TWD. I’m hoping to record the first one tomorrow.
Hey, first I just wanted to say I found this site a few weeks ago and I’ve been catching up ever since. This was the first episode I read when it was new.. Or, you know, only a couple days old. Love your work, Dave.
Second, I travel a lot and language barriers will always pose a problem in getting a task accomplished and it’s true the non-verbal communication can be different in different areas, but overall if you can see face to face people usually have a way of figuring out basic intentions. It would definitely cause a lot of expat deaths for people of all nationalities living away from their cultural center but I feel it would only slightly increase a person’s vulnerability level during the rise. It would also increase their chance of getting looted or robbed by a non-zombie too I suppose.
Either way, great comic. Thanks for the work and dedication to keep bringing it to us. Any chance you have more zombie fiction lined up? That’s how I originally found the site.
Hey Jonesing, thanks for your kind words!
In regards to the zombie fiction, I don’t have anything on the horizon at the moment, but I think it’s time to change that. I’m going to see what I can come up with.