HELLLOOO!!!!

Alright then, so this means the zombie crazy is about over

/turns out the light and closes the door

Their answer is everything you would expect from years of government training.

Shut up about the zombies! They are a joke!

/Werewolves, however...

Flanders was a zombie?

Given zombies as a real thing, it'd be imperative to destroy them faster than they can spread infection.

Anything less results in the extinction of the human race.

I gotta give props to the spokesman for the CDC. He knows the Zombie Apocalypse is a pop-culture thing, and that the CDC embraced it with their "Be Prepared" campaign. But he's also a spokesman for the government, and would be roasted over an open fire and served on silver platters if newspapers tomorrow ran the headline "CDC Authorizes Extermination of Zombies."

Well handled, Mr. Daigle.

I'm going to go with "shambling toward me" as "it's okay now"

You what has really been pissing me off about the zombie craze? The fact that we get articles and discussions in which people act like it's going to happen. They talk about the ethics, their survival plan, the best way to kill them, etc.

I don't recall there ever being a FARK thread about what to do when vampires attack. But there's a damned zombie survivalist porn wank thread once every couple of weeks.

And I liked zombies. I loved them. I was a huge zombie fan in the 80s... But the f♥cking Internet has just pounded the topic into the ground, and Max Brooks invited all the survivalist feebs to the party.

Vampire and zombies are played out. Vamps have been turned into pretty elves, and zombies have been turned into an excuse to talk about guns and fortresses.

I think it's time to go back to another monster. Kaiju, golems, sea monsters, mummies, giant spiders... Something besides zombies and vampires, please!

That's not to say there aren't good stories to be told about zombies or vamps, but that we're all getting a little burned out on them, and the main fans are now the lowest common denominators (Twilight fans, and World War Z fans)... The people who were late to the game, don't understand the classic rules, and want to use the monsters as a way to talk about something else (survival fantasies, or romance).

Zombies will never exist. Please stop talking about them as if they do. It's not fun anymore. You've ruined it, Internet. You've just f♥cking ruined it.

Nihilist's Guide to Reticent Entropy: And I liked zombies. I loved them. I was a huge zombie fan in the 80s... But the f♥cking Internet has just pounded the topic into the ground, and Max Brooks invited all the survivalist feebs to the party.




Nihilist's Guide to Reticent Entropy: The people who were late to the game, don't understand the classic rules, and want to use the monsters as a way to talk about something else (survival fantasies, or romance).

So what exactly are the classic rules of zombies outside of them being undead, only shots the the head taking them down, and spreading infection via bites? Most recent popular zombie fiction has stayed pretty close to these rules, aside from the occasional rage-infected non-undead zombie. Plus, going all the way back to Night of the Living Dead, zombies have always been used as a vehicle for social commentary, so comics like The Walking Dead and books like Feed are continuing that tradition.

I'm sorry, CDC people. This is (partial) the Resident Evil generation, and All Flesh Must Be Eate....I mean, uh, all Zombies will be destroyed on site.

And why in the fark is this not on the main page???

and Max Brooks invited all the survivalist feebs to the party.

Guess who isn't on the invite list to the bunker?

Nihilist's Guide to Reticent Entropy: Please stop talking about them as if they do. It's not fun anymore. You've ruined it, Internet.

I believe the standard approach to take when you don't want to read or talk about something is to:

1.) not read it and,
2.) don't talk about it.

With these simple guidelines you can avoid having to read or talk about zombies on the internet while the rest of us have fun.

Preparing for a zombie outbreak is not much different from preparing for a global pandemic and the roving bands of starving unprepared city folk and looters. But since that actually has a chance of happening, and the ramifications are horrifying, it's more fun to talk about zombies.

/http://digitaljournal.com/article/316682

Ecliptic: Nihilist's Guide to Reticent Entropy: Please stop talking about them as if they do. It's not fun anymore. You've ruined it, Internet.

I believe the standard approach to take when you don't want to read or talk about something is to:

1.) not read it and,
2.) don't talk about it.

With these simple guidelines you can avoid having to read or talk about zombies on the internet while the rest of us have fun.

Preparing for a zombie outbreak is not much different from preparing for a global pandemic and the roving bands of starving unprepared city folk and looters. But since that actually has a chance of happening, and the ramifications are horrifying, it's more fun to talk about zombies.

/http://digitaljournal.com/article/316682

THIS

Nihilist's Guide to Reticent Entropy: I think it's time to go back to another monster. Kaiju, golems, sea monsters, mummies, giant spiders... Something besides zombies and vampires, please!

Giant spiders have never ceased to be a threat, but they can be fought with pesticides, can become ill, etc, and so aren't as much of a concern as zombies.

Mad_Radhu: So what exactly are the classic rules of zombies outside of them being undead, only shots the the head taking them down, and spreading infection via bites?

Also, the "infection" they spread isn't some "zombie infection" (fark you, Brooks). It's just nasty shiat introduced into the bloodstream because you were bitten by something, something that happens to also be dead and rotting. You get sick, you die. And dead people become zombies.

ArcadianRefugee: Mad_Radhu: So what exactly are the classic rules of zombies outside of them being undead, only shots the the head taking them down, and spreading infection via bites?

Also, the "infection" they spread isn't some "zombie infection" (fark you, Brooks). It's just nasty shiat introduced into the bloodstream because you were bitten by something, something that happens to also be dead and rotting. You get sick, you die. And dead people become zombies.



That really depends on the zombie story. There isn't one official monolithic set of rules for how a zombie works. Yeah, you can push things a little too far like the Twilight vamps who ignore way too many of the conventions of what makes a vampire a vampire, but in general so long as you stay true to the spirit of zombies multiplying at a geometrical rate due to making new zombies it is still a zombie story, even if you explain the undead with science (like in the Newsflesh books where it is the result of two genetically engineered viruses combining, which opens up some fun avenues of plot that just isn't there with a mystical zombie). Hell, no one thinks that I Am Legend is less of a classic despite Matheson giving the vamps a biological basis, so there's no reason to dismiss at biologically-based zombies either.

When you are dealing with fictional creations, you ARE allowed as a writer to add your own spin on the genre. As a purist, you are free to disagree if those changes are good ones, but you can't just dismiss out of hand people who actually did enjoy the story. When it comes to World War Z, Brooks was trying to make things "feel" real, and mystical zombies would not only have worked against that, but they would also have created problems with the story because it would have made it hard if not impossible to create zones free of the "infection" if you kept having zombies popping up every time someone died of an accident or natural causes. I'm willing to let the problems involved with biological zombies slide however, because the heart of the story wasn't really zombies or even survivalism, but was more a tale of a world much like ours getting hit with a huge crisis that shatters our modern civilization, and how the survivors came together to triumph over impossible odds. I first read the book in late 2007, just as the world's economy was shiatting the bed, and at the time I felt it was a story that I felt really tapped into the zeitgeist of that time period.

If you take a genere of fiction so seriously that you get upset when the "rules" are broken, you are just going to cause that genre to die from lack of creativity.

Mad_Radhu: ArcadianRefugee: Mad_Radhu: So what exactly are the classic rules of zombies outside of them being undead, only shots the the head taking them down, and spreading infection via bites?

Also, the "infection" they spread isn't some "zombie infection" (fark you, Brooks). It's just nasty shiat introduced into the bloodstream because you were bitten by something, something that happens to also be dead and rotting. You get sick, you die. And dead people become zombies.

[30.media.tumblr.com image 394x406]

That really depends on the zombie story. There isn't one official monolithic set of rules for how a zombie works. Yeah, you can push things a little too far like the Twilight vamps who ignore way too many of the conventions of what makes a vampire a vampire, but in general so long as you stay true to the spirit of zombies multiplying at a geometrical rate due to making new zombies it is still a zombie story, even if you explain the undead with science (like in the Newsflesh books where it is the result of two genetically engineered viruses combining, which opens up some fun avenues of plot that just isn't there with a mystical zombie). Hell, no one thinks that I Am Legend is less of a classic despite Matheson giving the vamps a biological basis, so there's no reason to dismiss at biologically-based zombies either.

When you are dealing with fictional creations, you ARE allowed as a writer to add your own spin on the genre. As a purist, you are free to disagree if those changes are good ones, but you can't just dismiss out of hand people who actually did enjoy the story. When it comes to World War Z, Brooks was trying to make things "feel" real, and mystical zombies would not only have worked against that, but they would also have created problems with the story because it would have made it hard if not impossible to create zones free of the "infection" if you kept having zombies popping up every time someone died of an accident or natural causes. I'm willing to let t ...

And what about the traditional voodoo zombie?

Mad_Radhu: ArcadianRefugee: Mad_Radhu: So what exactly are the classic rules of zombies outside of them being undead, only shots the the head taking them down, and spreading infection via bites?

Also, the "infection" they spread isn't some "zombie infection" (fark you, Brooks). It's just nasty shiat introduced into the bloodstream because you were bitten by something, something that happens to also be dead and rotting. You get sick, you die. And dead people become zombies.

[30.media.tumblr.com image 394x406]

That really depends on the zombie story. There isn't one official monolithic set of rules for how a zombie works. Yeah, you can push things a little too far like the Twilight vamps who ignore way too many of the conventions of what makes a vampire a vampire, but in general so long as you stay true to the spirit of zombies multiplying at a geometrical rate due to making new zombies it is still a zombie story, even if you explain the undead with science (like in the Newsflesh books where it is the result of two genetically engineered viruses combining, which opens up some fun avenues of plot that just isn't there with a mystical zombie). Hell, no one thinks that I Am Legend is less of a classic despite Matheson giving the vamps a biological basis, so there's no reason to dismiss at biologically-based zombies either.

When you are dealing with fictional creations, you ARE allowed as a writer to add your own spin on the genre. As a purist, you are free to disagree if those changes are good ones, but you can't just dismiss out of hand people who actually did enjoy the story. When it comes to World War Z, Brooks was trying to make things "feel" real, and mystical zombies would not only have worked against that....

My point is that "zombie virus" makes zombies less scary. You don't need zombies to be supernatural, just unexplained. If you know the cause, you can put an end to it, especially if it is something like an infection.

Plus, "zombies as sick people" becomes a whole moral thing as well. "Zombies as the living dead" is completely morally unambiguous: you see one, you put it down; end of story. Your wife of 15 years has became a zombie? *Shrug* *BLAM!* But once you make them simply people with an illness, then you might be less inclined to pull that trigger. "She can be saved" or the like.

I like my zombies completely terrifying and totally devoid of ethical quandaries.

... but they would also have created problems with the story because it would have made it hard if not impossible to create zones free of the "infection" if you kept having zombies popping up every time someone died of an accident or natural causes. I'm willing to let t ...

Which (a) makes the threat more menacing. Someone dies? Decapitation is now SOP. Someone dies, zombifies, and starts wandering about? You put it down, pronto. Got bit? Immediate quarantine in case you die before medical assistance can (hopefully) treat any infection that may result in a fatality. Etc. Still totally do-able.

/and it keeps the populace (of the story) more on their feet; "zombie-free zones" can lead to complacency ;)

Trafficguy2000: HELLLOOO!!!!

Alright then, so this means the zombie crazy is about over

/turns out the light and closes the door

Zombies? OMG! I just learned about the zombie craze. I TOTALLY love it now. I'm looking to start a neighborhood zombie watch chapter next month. This has nowhere to go but up, baby!

brianbankerus: Trafficguy2000: HELLLOOO!!!!

Alright then, so this means the zombie crazy is about over

/turns out the light and closes the door

Zombies? OMG! I just learned about the zombie craze. I TOTALLY love it now. I'm looking to start a neighborhood zombie watch chapter next month. This has nowhere to go but up, baby!

I'm pretty sure this whole zombie craze will peak in early November.

Unsung_Hero: I'm pretty sure this whole zombie craze will peak in early November.

You've seen a few zombie crazes in your times? You can tell by the pixels?

/clearly kidding.

ArcadianRefugee: Plus, "zombies as sick people" becomes a whole moral thing as well. "Zombies as the living dead" is completely morally unambiguous: you see one, you put it down; end of story. Your wife of 15 years has became a zombie? *Shrug* *BLAM!* But once you make them simply people with an illness, then you might be less inclined to pull that trigger. "She can be saved" or the like.

Taking out that moral ambiguity doesn't make a great story. One thing I rather liked about Feed and Deadline is that the books posed an interesting question: what happens if there is a 1% chance of a person being able to fight off the infection? Do you try to help those people, or does the hesitation that comes with the possibility that a few people could recover put humanity at such a grave risk that you can't allow that info to leak out?

The Walking Dead also tackled the question of killing vs containing zombies with the whole Heschel storyline, although the zombies being undead in that story tends to make that ambiguity seem a little bit silly, and just turns it into empty moralizing because the question of who is right is a little obvious.