Zombie Cliche Lookout: While You Were Out
One thing that I like about zombie fiction is the way that it amplifies the stresses and strangeness of everyday life. It’s always weird coming back to the office after a week off and getting up to speed on all the things you’ve missed. Imagine if someone was fired while you were gone? It really messes with your comfort level for a little while, making it so that you have to re-acclimate.
Well, the zombie apocalypse is the same way, only bigger and badder. Instead of you being on a family vacation to Branson Missouri or Dollywood (I’m not judging here, you be you), you were out risking your ass to get critical supplies for the rest of the group. And instead of Teddy from customer support getting fired for being late for the twentieth time, Judy was torn to shreds by a pack of zombies. Oh, and the rest of the group only managed to escape because the zeds were fighting over Judy’s corpse.
About this Episode:
A huge thank you to everyone who pointed out that Sam didn’t know about Shannon being killed. For some reason I had it in my notes that Cheryl already told him. Your comments caused me to look back in the archives and realize just how wrong I was. It would have been pretty damn weird for them to just completely ignore the death of a quarter of the initial group of characters. Sure, I could have passed it off like Cheryl and Sam discussed it in the car, but that would have been lame.
Discussion Question: Big Changes
What’s your favorite nasty surprise that a character returns to in a zombie story? After all, characters getting separated from the group is a pretty standard trope within the genre, so their inevitable reunion is sure to introduce some interesting changes.
Typo alert: /
How’d that get there? 😀
Typo alert: “twenties time” twenties–> twentieth or maybe, since this is just a write-up, shorten it to “20th”? I dunno, whatever Dave decides is good with me.
Fixed both. The forward slash was probably me fat fingering it when I meant to hit the period. The real question is: how did I miss that?
As for the Discussion Question, I like it whenever Dave’s storyline suddenly has a zombie appear, seemingly out of nowhere, it makes for a nice surprise and keeps the storyline characters on their toes, they never know when Dave’s gonna drop another zombie horde on their asses! 😀
The zombies are a lot of fun, aren’t they? I notice that the traffic to the site goes up every time there are zombies in the comic too.
Note to self: add more zombies in my zombie story 😉
Big bad surprise, a lemon tart flavor of:
“Kill this big bad and O-FOK comes in”
Done right you get examples of:
Ghostbusters- lock & key -> marshmallowman gods
TWD comic- the governor, then Negan, right now the whispers
Wizards 1st rule series by Terry Goodkind
Bad:
Ghostbusters reboot- shoot a suicidal genius -> modern culture comments
TWD tv- gov -> Negan
Wiz 1st rule, always managing to trope the 3rd or 4th bad in.
I’m hoping the whispers are about to get down right freaky amazing baddies. Right now, I think those junkyard dogs are suppose to be the whispers, all I can say is No to that thought.
My favorite surprise is one of dramatic character change–going from one extreme to another because the character was put into such a different environment. A supposed bad-ass being found to be a whimpering fool, or the meek guy having all the skills needed to make weapons and save others from the on-coming horde.
As for Judy, I bet YOU shoved her into that group of walkers so you could escape…how can you live with yourself?… 😉
Discussion Question:
Spoilers for The Walking Dead Season Four, episode 14, The Grove.
When Carol and Tyrese come back to the house after a hunt/walk. And they discover that one of the children, that they were looking after, has killed her own sister with a knife. But don’t worry! She didn’t hurt the brain, she’ll come back! 😀
That’s a really messed up thing to return home to, but probably not even close to the worst that you’ll see in the apocalypse. 😉
You’re welcome Dave! 😀
783 episodes to get to the point where Sam learns that Shannon didn’t make it, 1,000 episodes should be a piece of cake for Dave! 😀 Just keep posting them, it’ll make some good stories I’m sure! 😀