Zombie Cliche Lookout: New Membership
As we have discussed many times during the tenure of this comic, working with other people will be absolutely essential in a zombie survival situation. That being said, there are a lot of caveats to that piece of wisdom. First, every new person you add to your group increases the amount of resources you need to survive. Another mouth to feed, as they say. That’s no small thing, procuring enough food, water, medical supplies, shelter, etc. for everyone will be a challenge at the outset, and will likely get more difficult the longer the zombie outbreak continues. Remember, you’ll be competing with other groups of survivors who need the same resources.
Another big issue is potential interpersonal conflicts within the group. The larger the group becomes the more likely it will be that people will have a hard time getting along with everyone. Lack of group cohesion and simmering resentment is a sure fire recipe for problems.
About this Episode:
I don’t know that it came across, but the idea with this episode was to show that Cheryl was hesitant about bringing any new people into the group. This is building on her troubles with Inez. Remember that? I know I need a refresher myself.
Other News:
There will be no comic on Monday; I’m taking the day off in observance of Independence Day here in the US. Sorry about the day off after my long hiatus, but I’ll be out of town several days and want to keep building my backlog rather than burning some of it for one holiday.
Discussion Question: The Trouble with People
Assuming a zombie apocalypse, what would be your biggest concern about bringing strangers into your group? I know we have people from a lot of different backgrounds here, so I’m really interested to see everyone’s different perspective. As a parent, my big fear would be for the safety of my kids.
My concern would be focus on what they can bring to the group. Considering I’m already a part of a wealthy community, I guess it could defend itself against brought in people.
Now they need to bring something valuable to the group. Like in TWD, Alexandria scouts bringing in Rick’s group because they spied them for a while… Where they got wrong is that you shouldn’t, IMO, bring a full group of strangers at the same time… 1,2 people is enough. More is trouble I guess…
You’re already part of a wealthy community?
Let me explain, I was assuming I was already, in a Z apocalype, a member of a large well established group. I’m not saying that right now, I’m leaving in a castle LOL… At all… :-(. Haha
Well damn. I was going to offer you some incredible sponsorship opportunities for BotD!
Typo alerts:
“many time during” time–>times
“every new people” people–>person
“Lack of group cohesive” cohesive–>cohesion or cohesiveness – up to Dave to pick one! 😉
There is no mouseover text for this comic – it seems to default to the episode title a lot of the time. 😀 I reckon this episode’s should read: “Also, I’m not sure how Gramps would react to my passions towards Tara” – or something along those lines.” 😀
Fixed all. They moved where you enter the hover text, and now I miss it all the time. I need to train myself to not miss it.
As for the discussion question: One very big concern is whether or not you could accept a lovesick person in the group. If there’s one thing you want to be careful of it’s someone who got burned by the fact that their loved one got turned into a zombie and became a zombie or food for them. This would be a problem if they formerly had been a young couple just starting out on their romantic marriage journey. They might start fights amongst single younger members of the opposite sex, and who knows what kind of problems they’ve had to deal with so far, you definitely want to avoid having to deal with them in the midst of a bunch of zombies and would want to be sure that they can emotionally fit properly into the group, instead of destroying themselves and possibly the group, too!
Oh man, interesting response, and one that would be very likely to happen. I’d be a mess if I lost my wife.
Since everyone would be having some degree of PTSD Figuring out who is going to implode would have to be someone’s full time job.
Funny thing about PTSD is that while everything is going to Hell people can keep it together and keep going. Once the threat is over or at least greatly reduced is when the full effects begin to manifest.
That would be a tough one. Make it through the shit and find safety, only to have someone lose it and put everyone at risk all over again.
Hmm, did the publisher mess up the schedule again? It’s Monday, and after the time the comic usually publishes here, so I’m guessing Dave is having publishing hiccups! 😀
Sorry, my mistake, I had not read the paragraph about you taking Independence day off. No worries, have a good day! 😀