Sketches of the Day: Have Mercy
Since I’m pretty excited about the imminent return of Z Nation for season 3 in about 10 days, I did a couple of characters from the show for my warm-up sketches today.
This one is Warren.
This one is 10K. You can see how he might appeal to me, what with the 10K Drawings countdown. His countdown is for Zombie kills. As one does.
After maybe a rough start in the first season (according to some reviewers), the show is just the right sort of sincere camp I adore–both funny and touching.
While we’re at it, here’s another sketch:
I’m scanning, shading, and lettering a new comic tonight. It probably won’t post for a few hours.
They look nice, although zombie themed anything is not my cup of tea.
Iusta needs a pilum to go with her gladius.
One thing that few people are aware off is that the Roman army was the outlier instead of the norm in the main weapon department. They used a short sword while most established armies, like those of Asia Minor, used the spear as the main weapon.
The sword was the equivalent of the hand gun. Something that you used only when the battle has gone down the drain for your side.
I actually usually agree on Zombie-things not being my cuppa. I love a Last Man on Earth scenario, and these days it seems like if you want your postapocalyptic fun, half the time there are zombies involved 🙂
But I take the gory bits in Z Nation because I also love good camp–the sort of camp I like isn’t the all-out “Sharknado” goofball slapstick style, but camp that blends humour with genuine characters, relationships, emotional involvement, etc. B-Movie earnestness, whether you’re fighting zombies or wearing togas. It took the first season of Z Nation a while to settle into that mode.
Still, ir’s definitely not a show for everybody. Being a zombie show, there’s excessive gore and gross-out makeup. Oftentimes the gore is part of playing up the ridiculousness of fighting zombies in creative ways. But it’s still very gross.
For my Zombie Apocalypse, I’d want some weapons that can keep the zombies at a good distance, while I’m out there fighting at the end of the world. The Mythbusters tests showed that an axe is pretty effective….
We humans have created a lot of weapons to keep our enemies as far away as possible. We have polearms! Spear, halberd (an axe+spear+hook combination), the glaive (basically a machete at the end of a spear pole), bardiche (big ax on a pole), poleaxe (another ax on a pole). Just google polearm and you will see the ridiculous amount of variation on the “edged weapon on top of a pole” theme.
So I think that zombie fighting shows are quite unimaginative in the weapons department sticking to the shotgun, bow and arrow and of course the sword (basically a katana) or machete. ** Yawn **
I find zombie fighting to be boring and lack of imagination. I believe that the best zombie movie was “28 Days Later”. At least in that one, it was actual living people that got sick instead of living dead. And that they eventually died of hunger, but in the mean time they were quite dangerous.
28 Days Later is one of my favourite “last man on earth” movies–I didn’t know going in that it was also, essentially, a zombie movie. I liked the fact that–unlike in a current popular TV zombie franchise–people took practical measures to protect themselves from exposure and mangling; and the “fast zombies” were a much more convincing threat than ones that slowly shamble mindlessly down the road and surprise the heroes somehow.
I still worry about the pet fish.
I have movies such as Moon and Silent Running at the top of my last-man-genre list, and books such as Elizabeth Moon’s brilliant Remnant Population. I get a better “fix” in the genre from novels and short story anthologies than from movies or TV. My favourite of all is Knock by Fredric Brown but specifically for the first two lines (which I think I first read quoted in a different last-man story):
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.
There was a knock at the door.
I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted that several times here. It was very influential in my life 🙂
Z Nation both spoofs the usual Zombie-show weaponry and gets creative, but in an extremely silly way. I don’t recall much use of polearms in the show, though. Lots of guns. Though, to be fair, I think in the US people would reach for guns first (and find a big supply of them). The SCA types might be a little more creatively anachronistic. Plus would remember to wear protective clothing. I don’t believe zombies would be able to bite through a metal gorget.
I can do a lot of damage with a brace of rapiers, I’m just saying; but I think I’ll take the “avoid the zombies” and “only have slow zombies in my apocalypse” approach.
Moon is a fantastic Sci-Fi movie. I’ve never seen Silent Running. And the short story Knock is a blast.
The problems with guns is at the rate they keep using them, they have to run out of ammo and there supply system to keep them replenished does not exist anymore. So for me a major plot hole is the ammo magic replenishment system.