Zombie Cliche Lookout: Left Behind
As horror movies so often caution, splitting up can be very dangerous. Not only are you losing any potential numerical advantage, each subgroup now has to worry about the others, which can affect their ability to survive. In zombie fiction, this tends to come up most often with characters waiting for the other part of their group to show back up before they take some sort of action, such as moving on or putting up barricades. This puts both groups at risk of attack, and the longer they wait, the worse it gets.
Naturally, there is the chance that the away team simply won’t be coming back. They could have been killed, abandoned the group, captured, or are in some other way unable to return. That causes two other issues with the main group. First, there’s an element of guilt and dread. Should they abandon the missing people? What if that was them? This thinking impacts their ability to survive. Second, the main group is left with a difficult choice :they can abandon the missing people and lose that part of their group, or take the risk of going out and trying to find them. Neither choice is a good one.
About this Episode:
I recently bit the bullet and subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s something that I’ve put off for a long time for two big reasons. First, I had a hard time justifying the cost. Second, I really dislike subscription models for things. It’s just something that bugs me. At any rate, I finally caved and I’m using a modern version of Photoshop, et al.
Overall, I’m really digging the improvements, although the workflow changes are taking a bit of getting used to. One big change is the updated cropping model, which is radically different from the version I’m used to. I think that, once I get the hang of things I’m really going to dig it, but for now I’m bumbling my way through.
Discussion Question: Contest Suggestions
It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a real contest around these parts, and with Episode 500 right around the corner, I figured it’s time to fix that.
Now, I could come up with a contest theme myself, but I thought it would be fun to open it up to the community to see what you could come up with. Besides, your ideas are probably going to be better than mine anyway.
Wow, long episode. Loving it and can’t wait for the 500th.
Thanks! I can’t believe I’m this close to 500.
Typo alert, Zombie Cliche Lookout, second paragraph, eighth sentence, after the colon: “do they abandon the missing people and lost that part of their group“. Replace bolded words with the following: “count that part of their group as lost”. It might seen that lost should become lose but the sentence is incorrectly structured in the first place and needs to be rewritten to make the context relevant to the preceding sentences. 😉
About This Episode, second sentence: updates–>updated 😀
Fixed! I rewrote that sentence so it hopefully reads better now.
For that first typo you still have more fixing to do, choice is now doubled up in the sentence! 😀
Good lord, how did I manage to do that?
I don’t know, but even if it makes the 500th episode a little late, I would prefer it being proofread (by yourself) twice to find errors in the next episode! 😀
Regarding the content suggestions, mainly this webcomic has been about zombies and everything related to it. But are there directions not involving zombies that Dave wants to dabble in? Are there directions his readers would like him to test out, that don’t involve zombies? 😀
This reaction made me laugh… and I thought the same as you at first.
It made me laugh because I think you are responding to a typo. Reading the paragraph I think Dave wants us to do a conteSt suggestion, and not a content suggestion 🙂
A typo in large font, plain sight, bold… that is hard to spot. 🙂
Ha you may be right at that! 😀 Although, maybe I could just be pulling Dave’s leg, eh? 😉
He wants content or contest suggestions, I’ll give him what I can think of! 😉
I can always count on you, BV.
The other thing that may be errant is that he said “since we’ve had real contest around these parts” I think it should read “since we’ve had some real contests around these parts”, FL. That typo is really really subtle and hard to spot! 😀
Good spot; I’ll fix that.
I have no excuses for that one. Just plain sloppy on my part.
Hah, yeah “Content” is supposed to be “Contest”, but you ask an interesting question here. One thing I really like about the zombie genre is that it allows you to examine all manner of subjects using zombies as the lens. I think that’s something I’d like to be more deliberate about. I try to do it with subjects like preparedness and individualism, which link so neatly with the subject matter, but I should broaden things up a bit.
Whoop whoop episode 500 next! Crack open the champagne Dave, I bet you never thought it would get this far. Be warned, I’m expecting big things!
On the 500th episode theme, why don’t you go for a Lego “bricks of the dead 500th” logo challenge?
Thank you, sir!
A logo challenge could be cool; that opens things up a bit for people who don’t have much of a LEGO collection.
I have a contest of sorts Dave could put together and it could involve a random scene from one of his recent photo shoots. Make up two identical strips but in one of them, intentionally put in up to ten small and subtle errors in placement of characters or objects! I always enjoyed the ‘spot the difference’ panels in the Sunday comics and spent quite a bit of time trying to find small but significant details that were missing or changed! 😀
My son has been getting Highlights magazine lately, and loves challenges like that. It’s a cool idea.
Finally, on the comic itself, Who does Michael think he is to start giving orders out? I think Cheryl or Russell should reign his wild horses in for him and let him know he and Joy aren’t quite yet a part of the group! 😀
Hah, he’s definitely pushing the limits of hospitality here, isn’t he?
A zombie fiction contest? Who else out there has some chops? Who is fit to judge? Could Bryan James or D.L. Snell be persuaded to join?
So many questions and so little time.
A fiction contest could be cool, but I’d definitely need some extra judges since it would be so time consuming.
Zombie Costume Contest? Or, for the Lego owners, a build using exactly 500 legos?
Costume contest could be cool, but it’d be tough to verify they were original costumes and not something snatched from a zombie walk or something like that.
I do like the idea of a limited LEGO creation. X amount of parts, must include Y item, etc.
If you do decide to do that, please make sure you include a separate part count for the number of minifigs and accessories that are allowed! 😀
I’d be hesitant to do a part count based contest because I doubt anyone wants to do that much counting, but I like the idea of having to use a specific part.
Yeah, LEGO is more suited to vignette style building. However, limitations on part counts can and do work if the right formula can be found. 😉
How about a zombie vehicle contest?
Rules:
-Original design for a LEGO MOC zombie-proof vehicle
-Could be any kind of vehicle (Car, Boat, Train, Helicopter, Plane)
-Not seen before online (To proof check, right click on the image, then select ‘Search Google for this image’. Any other usage of the image online will turn up.)
Oh, now here’s an idea. Vehicles are nice because they don’t require tons of pieces and you have a ton of possibilities. I like it.
That sounds really cool The Beef Thief
I like that idea, I suck at making vehicles though
Practicing is a good way to improve.
Indeed it is.
How about a new, powerful, enemy group? Every good zombie story/game has some kind of ruthless mob like gang. And it could bring some more action to the story.
Contest. Contest? CONTEST!
There’s my old idea of a “Zombie kill of the week” LEGO vignette – something like a 16*16 or even smaller depicting the demise of a zed. Extra point for creative killing methods!
To tie the contest with the site the theme could to build something from the game Outlast… or how about something completely different and throw a writing contest – short story, fixed theme (BotD extended universe?), a max amount of words.