Zombie Cliche Lookout: Picking a Target
One thing I wish zombie stories did more often was to have characters look at zombies as potential resources as well as sources of danger and terror. That sounds a little weird, I realize, but hear me out. Every zombie that you see out there, roaming around and trying to eat your friends and family, used to be a person. That person potentially had any number of useful items on their person. The obvious example here is the keys to the truck Barb assumes belongs to the prisoners.
It goes much farther than that though. Police officers, to start, would be carrying at least one weapon and extra magazines, as well as a number of other useful items. CCW permit holders, too, potentially have weapons on their person. Beyond that, the zombies themselves are a potential weapon, or at very least a deterrent. Imagine how many bandits and raiders would pass you by if your hideout was surrounded by a couple hundred zeds. The risk just wouldn’t be worth the potential reward for them.
About this Episode:
I know I’m probably abusing the shallow depth-of-field switching effects in these comics. I know it, but I just don’t care. I think it looks cool.
Discussion Question: Script Supervisor Issues
So I’ve been waiting for one of you guys to call me on this, and am shocked that it hasn’t happened yet. What the hell am I talking about? Well, I’m fairly certain there’s a pretty big continuity error going on with our prisoners. I am almost positive that at least one, possibly two or even all of them, were killed by our heroes at some point.
So why did I leave it in if I knew it was an issue? Long story short, because I thought it was funny and went well with those stupid “behind the scenes” episodes I did a while back. All that being said, I’m now wondering if my memory is completely wrong and none of these characters were killed after all. That’s where you come in. Prove me right. Or wrong, obviously, but hopefully right.
Typo alerts: “trying to eat your friends and family, using to be a person.” using–>used This is a hilariously funny typo if you think about it! 😀
“That person potentially had any number of useful items on their person.” Remove “their person” and replace with “them”. It’s already implied from the first instance of “person” who we’re talking about. 😉
Some weird and hilarious typos today, Dave! Have fun fixing them! 😀
Fixed the first one. “Their person” is probably an idiom, it just means that you’re carrying something on you (e.g. in your pocket.
It’s just that it is repetitive. You’ve mentioned “person” twice in the same sentence, further, said person is actually not a person, but a corpse of a person. To me, at least, it just doesn’t fit properly. You can keep it if it doesn’t bother you, but for myself, I would restate it better.
Also, apologies for the late reply, I’ve been busy with real life, and nursing a mouth sore on my tongue that is kinda painful until I can have a dentist file down a tooth. 😀
By the way, Dave, how are you doing with getting the Archives set up and moving the Guest comics off the previous and next buttons so that the comic is easier to navigate? Your question would be a lot easier to answer if browsing the archives was easier to do. 😀
It’s not going great. I spent quite a bit of time on it last week trying to get the guest comics separated out (you might notice some different tagging on recent guest comics), but none of my changes worked and I had to back everything out. Working on another approach now.
What kind of setup are you using in your webpage editing software to store all of the comics? If it was a simple thing, like grouping them properly, then fixing it should be simple. From what you’re saying here, it sounds a lot more complicated than that. Good luck! 😀
You gain +2 to your Lazyness stat, Dave :3
To be fair that all happened a year ago and I dont really want to go back and find out the answer either.
On another subject, do you make your family, friends, coworkers into background characters or zombies?
Laziness points all around!
Good question. I haven’t really made people I know into background characters, but I have definitely borrowed some personality traits from people I know.
Hmm continuity issues … There are three prisoners, in Episode 337, Clark confirms this.
In Episode 347, a zombiefied Gene takes out the leader of the prisoners that he attacked in Episode 346, or at least the one doing the talking. He appeared in Episode 44.
In the last panel of that episode, Barb shoots one of the prisoners. This is the prisoner that appeared in Episode 45, and wears an eye patch.
Continuity error: In Episode 348, he is magically standing after being hit by a bullet from a rifle Barb shot him with. And hoo boy, what a continuity error! In Episode 349, he’s on the ground, apparently dead from the bullet wound. Continuity beginning to return to normal parameters …
The last prisoner, the bare-chested moustache faced guy, is also in Episode 45 and the associated episodes concerning the raiding of supplies, as are the other two.
He also appears in Episode 342, then shoots the TV truck Gene, Ted, Barb, and Clark were in, in Episode 344, before going on to threaten Ted in Episode 348. He then is attacked by Clark in the last panel of that episode.
In Episode 349, he’s a surprisingly strong one, he kicks Clark off of him, and prepares to shoot him. In the next Episode, 350, Barb says Goodbye to this prisoner, too, and shoots him.
Apparently, none of the three prisoners get fatal head shots, meaning they’re certainly all zombies by now and roaming around in the crowd near Barb.
I was confused at first by the fact that the prisoner that Barb shot got up miraculously but as stated above, continuity seems to have returned to normality. What Barb will have to do is somehow separate the zombies she wants to search for keys, this is a rather hopeless task in my honest opinion.
That’s what i can see from looking through the archives, Dave, it’s over to you now for commentary and closing amendments. Also, please bear in mind that my own continuity checker may have missed small or unimportant details not pertaining to the fate of the three prisoners. 😀
Hah, this is more or less what I expected. Good lord I made a hash of this.
Also, I wonder if these prisoners did something typical of movies involving cars or trucks in them: Did one of them not hide the keys under the sun shield of the vehicle’s cabin? 😀
Hah, they didn’t. I’ve never seen anyone do that in real life, but have seen in quite a few movies.
I also haven’t checked beyond these episodes, yet, I may do so later, I’m not sure who Ted or the others were knocking in the head when they were attacked in later episodes. So maybe the prisoners got cleaned up in later episodes, more archive delving. *sighs*
I wouldn’t be surprised if the prisoners showed up there too.
Hmm, spotted what appear to be be two of the prisoners at the front door of the house they’re in, in Episode 356. Also what could be the moustache faced guy, or at least the top half of his zombiefied self, in Episode 354, along with the other two prisoners.. 😀
And in Episode 366, the three prisoners all seem to be the zombies that got to the front door first! 😀
In Episode 599, they’re still outside. I’m fairly certain now where the three zombiefied prisoners are! 😀
Well that’s good. I’ve been trying to remember to keep them near to the front door, but I forget in the time between story arcs. I need to start writing myself notes.
Yeah notes, for instance, to prototype and build yourself a time machine, and fix the crazy mistakes your continuity writer left you! 😉
Hey you know in every zombie movie, someone has a tank or some large vehicle to run from banits and zombies. There’s also a road block set up by the milltary. The one thing you didn’t do was tell us how it started.
Prisoners? What prisoners? LOL
Honestly I thought the shallow shots of 1/2 zeds were to make us think the hord is larger than it might be. In the opening of this “Daring Ducking Door Danged Damsel” there are 2 extra zeds, 1 in blue with a bucket (maybe?) and 1 at the door with a black toupee, therefore there are 8 to 10 glecks; we can plainly see; which leaves using statistical math there is a 1! / 10! Using the higher value, because if you see one zed, there are more.
( 2.75573192e- 7 thanks to google math) to find the 1 item in question. However there are things in everyone’s everyday pockets that should help:
1) keys – weapon, noise maker, unlock-er of useful places
2) coins – again noise, throw at rooftop, watch how the undead “monkeys” dance to your “organ grinding” musical.
(I refuse to do the other joke, you all might be thinking)
3) wallets – information, cash to trade, access cards, fake ids
4) clothing accessories – stay warm, temporarily bandage stuff, hope the smell makes you one of them.
5) hats – some of the better built ones make a good defensive tool
6) small tools – leftovers from the days job that forgot to be put back or needed on the road (won’t tell you how many times)
7) writing items – first it’s a pen, now it’s a functioning trachea tube.
8) medical stuff – personally I carry a minor first-aid kit, due to my clumsy nature and stuff I work with.
Hope that gives you a hand with seeing what you missed and ideas for later episodes. Also I apologize for the length of this message.
JohnMarker’s comment above gives me a Discussion Question:
he mentions getting the clothes off of zombies, now, having had these zombies roaming around in clothes they haven’t changed for ages, depending on how far into the zombie apocalypse one is, would you as a survivor even want to consider looting and having to go to the extreme trouble of sanitizing filthy zombie clothes? Or would you rather go raid a former clothing store and hope they at least have some raw materials out the back nobody else liked? 😀
My apologies for the false impression, it was more for the accessories, then the clothing itself. Bandanas, pins, hats. Stuff you can grab, “fish” hook, find a safe way to remove and runaway safely.
The longer the problem goes on the less resources and safety places offer.
Still from a biological stand point, would an enlarged nasal cavity mean more smells hitting smell reception areas? EI: a dog as a noseless zed? That’s why you don’t wash the items you take, just yet.