Page 101: How He Did It
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007I hope Addison never dies.
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I hope Addison never dies.
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November 21st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Jaysburn: It’s complicated and there are many facets to it. If it’s a simple command like STOP or KILL EVERYONE or MOVE TOWARDS THIS ONE PLACE (like the school), he can control an area of at least 1,000 miles in any direction. If he has to tell a pilot to fly his plane properly to a certain area, it takes a bit more concentration and it helps to be close to that pilot, and it would make it more difficult for him to simultaneously command other groups of troops. Also keep in mind that he can make zombies do things that they COULDN’T do as humans if he gives them specific instructions because he himself knows how to do it, and that takes even more concentration.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
“I have no clue why you’d think that a casual tone and slang would not be said by this person, when all evidence points to the contrary.”
I have a feeling I’ve been misunderstood. :/
What I meant was, the way Payne says things is usually matter-of-fact and to the point. Merely the way the second panel starts out, with the “Uh”, seems to kill the whole thing for me.
It sounds to me like he’s insinuating “Uh, DUHHH!”, which is rather obnoxious and, as I’ve said before, un-AFP-esque.
It seems just plain rushed, the dialogue for most of #101.
:/
November 21st, 2007 at 8:45 pm
“It sounds to me like he’s insinuating ‘Uh, DUHHH!’, which is rather obnoxious and, as I’ve said before, un-AFP-esque.”
There’s zero way of knowing if it’s un-Payne-esque, especially since no one has ever been in this specific situation before in history and he might act differently than he normally would, but I don’t understand how he’s acting any different. He’s had, what, 20 lines of dialogue in the whole book so far? Pretty darn hard to say he’s suddenly acting out of character, especially someone as unpredictable as him with the way he says things.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Fair enough.
I’m probably just overreacting; I’ve always been psycho about dialogue.
The rest of the comic is perfect. Owen portrays the people in a unique and generally awesome fashion, and your plot and characters just make it.
Don’t think I’m sucking up or anything. 😐
But I applaud Last Blood. ;]
November 21st, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Zachy T
Do you live in Westchester?
Cause I know a Zach T
November 21st, 2007 at 8:53 pm
“Zachy T
Do you live in Westchester?
Cause I know a Zach T”
😛 Nah, Zachy T. is short for Zach Telmar, which isn’t a real name. ;D
I live in PA.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Sure there are places on the earth that you can’t fly to. But how many of them are places of any military importance? Nepal might last a while, but would it matter?
By the end of the third *day* every major metroplex like, for example, New York city is either a screaming madhouse of panicked people or full of zombies with occasional pockets of survivors that the zombies can’t get to.
By the end of the first week the metroplexes are gutted ruins and the zombie packs are spreading across the countryside looking for fresh food.
And all of this is without TFZ doing anything at all.
Heck, I wouldn’t be too surprised if TFZ was somehow directly responsible for the limited nuclear exchange I heard mentioned a couple times. Just to be sure the governments didn’t trust each other enough to organize an effective resistance while they still had a chance…
Three weeks or so with unimpeded air travel, an endless supply of minions wherever you go, and the ability to smell human survivors at something like a thousand miles? The only thing that would even slow TFZ down is the need to do it all himself. He certainly doesn’t seem to need to sleep or anything like that.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
All that having been said, I still think he’s a whiny little bitch.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:56 pm
“A lot of people have been disrespectful to you in pointing out your failings, but frankly, you’re just a dick who thinks he knows more than he does.”-Bongo Boy
I have to partially agree there, Bobby. I think that sometimes maybe you are wrong on issues, and I don’t believe I’ve seen any cases where you would even think of admiting a minor plot hole. (And there are some times when I believe there have been, but you will desperately try to disprove it, when it really is true.) Yes, people will dig through your writing as much as they possibly can to try and find a flaw. I suppose it is kind of a challenge to them.
I do, however, admire the fact that you do not simply block these arguements. ^_^ And thank you for taking time to read mine.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:58 pm
my only question is what were TFZ’s plans about 3 weeks after now when everybody is in to much pain to move or be guarded? my guess. puts on his own zombie broadway show, and hangs out drinking with grady.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:00 pm
“I think that sometimes maybe you are wrong on issues, and I don’t believe I’ve seen any cases where you would even think of admiting a minor plot hole. (And there are some times when I believe there have been, but you will desperately try to disprove it, when it really is true.)”
Point those out please, since you’re such an expert on the matter that you can say “when it really is true.” Where are the plot holes?
November 21st, 2007 at 10:18 pm
i think these things are just getting over thought. places where a plane can’t fly? ICBM. bunker that would take days to get into? find a zombie who used to be a nuclear scientist, and nuke it. “but it’s super shielded against nukes”. but they can’t get out and walk right into a nuclear wasteland. hell, set off 4 or 5 nukes for good measure right on top of it. where would you get a nuke? i don’t know, the hundreds of nukes the american government has, not to mention several other nations around the globe. really, there are only a few places that would be difficult or time consuming to get to that would really require nukes and he’d have plenty laying around, and plenty of zombies who knew how to operate them and where each bunker was. and possibly even how to enter each bunker. it’s not like there are hundreds of vamps with super strength. it’s already been said that only a few of them have it anyway, they won’t be digging anybody out of a buried bunker. he didn’t turn everybody in the world into zombies, he just flat out killed a lot of them too. probably because it was indeed to difficult or time consuming to really give a damn about them. the US on it’s own currently has 5,736 active stockpile warheads. again one of a million possibilities. if somebody has grabbed control of all the major world governments, and doesn’t give a damn about anything but reducing the world’s population to a few dozen in some small remote area, he wins. no escape.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:21 pm
also on the “how did he find everybody” note, did he really have to start looking those first few weeks? 6 billion people across the globe. just start bombing and biting everywhere. i can’t help but think he wouldn’t have to spend time looking for survivors till there were only a handful left, and in the jets we have now with that kind of speed and his range of smell. it just can’t take that much time. it’s not like he has to stop as soon as he smells some. hell have a whole armada in the air and just drop off zombies as they fly, or just write a note on a map. again, just feels like having any problems with this doomsday situation is just over thinking it.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Am I the only person who think that it looks like more of an “Oh” than an “Uh”?
November 21st, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Yes. You are. But that may be the smartest mistake anyone has made on this comic today. And considering how similar the meanings are, it doesn’t really matter too much.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Nevermind. Now that I go back and compare that lettering, it is pretty obviously an “Uh”. I’ll keep going with “Oh” in my head, because I like it better that way.
November 21st, 2007 at 11:02 pm
“There are places where the conditions are such that air travel is impossible. And people live there.”
-One, example please? and two, we aren’t talking about landing, there are no invisible walls in the air protecting certain places. You could fly over, or fly over somewhere close, and have parachuting zombies which would not only be effective but really really awesome aswell. this argument is stupid.
Tegu: Thank you for mentioning suspension of disbelief. It is definitely funny that people who can accept zombies and vampires run arround trying to argue over where said zombies can go.
And i definitely think there should be the line that justin said printed in BIG LETTERS at the top of the comments: “My comic, my movie, my rules, my reality, you failâ€
November 21st, 2007 at 11:47 pm
I’m laughing at the comments on how some places cant be reached in a month. Today, if you take a straight flight from United States to China (across the world) it takes about 12 hours. Thats about the longest distance you can travel around the world if you’re talking about the shortest distance around. So there is no location that you could not travel to in a day if you were a zombie controlled by TFZ.
Also, there are places where LANDING an airplane would be difficult for humans, and the conditions would be hard for humans. But these are zombies, the only thing that kills them is if the brain is destroyed, or they’re torn apart in a way that the head is separated. Zombies wouldn’t even have to land a plane, they could crash and continue on, broken limbs don’t affect them.
Address places where you “can’t” air travel. There are always ways to get there. I’m thinking these places might be the Bermuda Triangle, or the Himalayas. But honestly, if you have a vast number of undead that don’t need to eat, sleep or breathe, this shouldn’t be an issue. If the plane crashes, they’ll still be able to consume humans.
And airplanes aside, there is technology that makes it possible to fly at higher altitudes then commercial, so wind speed doesn’t effect your time, and neither does rain or snow because you fly above the clouds. With GPS technology, TFZ could easily dip down to check out the conditions and quickly ascend to jet off to another location. Depending on what he flies, this would cut flying time down significantly. Doesn’t sound hard to me.
Anyways, sorry for the long post. I thought that since we were already holding a discussion, I should pass time in some way while eagerly awaiting the next update 🙂
November 21st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
I know you weren’t asking me, Bobby, but one plot hole that springs to mind is basing his success (largely) on his sense of smell. I DO know how the sense of smell works. The sensory organs in your nose require a certain density of airborne molecules of any given substance (usually measured in parts per million) to detect it. It’s a kind of sensory threshold. Anything less, and you can’t smell a thing. All of our senses function on much the same principle.
Now, I can go along with the idea that TFZ’s senses (and those of Math, Val, etc) are so incredibly sharp that they can detect the most minuscule of particle densities. But the thing is that those particles would need time to travel over hundreds or thousands of miles. To the point where four problems crop up.
Problem number one. The particles drop to the ground somewhere, because of rain or some other natural phenomenon. Hard to smell something that isn’t airborne anymore.
Problem number two. The particles become inert. The skin flakes and other cells that our body shed every day break down over time. That’s where dust comes from in our homes. (Not all of it, to be sure, but a decent amount of it.) As they break down into the base components (carbon, water, etc) they smell less like us, and more like those base components. Not only that, but separated from our bodies, those cells die quickly, and smell like dead stuff rather than warm, living people.
Problem number three. Density. Let’s say that the average human sense of smell can detect a scent at a density of one part per million of the substance in the air. (I’m sure we require much more than that, but humor me.) TFZ’s sense of smell would obviously be several orders of magnitude (at least) greater than ours, given the statements made so far. Perhaps one part per 10 to the 30th power. (That’s a 1 with 30 zeros after it, for those here who didn’t pay attention in math class.) The problem here isn’t detection, it’s contact. If there’s only a single atom/cell of a substance within a square mile, what are the chances of TFZ getting near it? Let alone inhaling it? And more than that, how is he to smell it while in a jet’s sealed canopy several hundred/thousand feet above the ground? (And don’t say that he opened/removed it. That would rip the jet to pieces in no time.)
And lastly, problem the fourth. Time. How long would it take for our scent to reach him, across mountains and such, and up to the planes he’s flying around in? By the time our scent reaches him, we aren’t where we were when those molecules that make our scent left our body. Not only that, but they are subject to winds. So if a wind carries our scent east for sixty miles, then meets a crosswind that carries it south for another sixty, how is he going to know where we are? And if he’s upwind, and our scent is being blown away from him, how is he going to smell us? His nose may defy physics, but we don’t. 😛 Sure, he could track us down given enough time, but the most he could immediately say would be that the wind carried our scent from a particular direction. (Airborne particles don’t move far without a breeze.)
I’m not sitting here saying “You fucked up! HAHAHAH” or anything. I’m just pointing out that sense of smell makes a poor plot device for this. Maybe a highly developed “sense” of the living things around him would work better? I mean, thousands of years of evolution could have given vampires the ability to sense their food without requiring any of the traditional five. And since TFZ has the ability to psychically control his minions, the potential for that kind of extra-sensory perception is certainly there.
Perhaps if/when the movie is made, and Math explains that he can smell blood from a long way off, he could explain that it’s not *really* his sense of smell, but he has no better way to explain the ability and/or that’s the only way that the mind can really interpret/comprehend said ability.
Just trying to be helpful, so don’t jump all over me for it. 😛
November 21st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
*commercial airlines
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Neko: The answer to that is the same answer as to why vampires can only be killed by a wooden stake through the heart but can survive anything else: that’s just the way it is. They have certain abilities and one of them is to smell and recognize blood at incredible distances, and only blood — anything other than blood they can only smell as well as humans can. It’s just one of those magical things and our laws of physics have nothing to do with it. It goes beyond all that and it’s instant.
Calling that a plot hole is like calling zombies or vampires in general a plot hole. It makes no sense.
The first sentence of the Wikipedia page for plot holes says “A plot hole is a gap or inconsistancy in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story’s plot.” This story has zombies and vampires who have special abilities, so it only goes against the flow of logic if you don’t buy that in general, and nothing’s inconsistent about it.
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:18 am
I would have said, “… with a stick up his arse like a pool que.”
Do zombies immediately start rotting that fast or is the idea that decay takes a normal amount of time and this is just to distinguish the zombies from the humans ?
And will they end up shambling corpses until their flesh falls from their bones and they can’t sustain their undeath any longer, or will they reach a certain level of corpseness and stay that way forever ?
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:28 am
“just to distinguish the zombies from the humans ?”
Basically, yeah.
“And will they end up shambling corpses until their flesh falls from their bones and they can’t sustain their undeath any longer, or will they reach a certain level of corpseness and stay that way forever ?”
They’ll stay around for a long time, possibly forever. The second graphic novel will definitively answer that question.
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:45 am
“My comments don’t make sense to you because you don’t know what you are talking about. THERE ARE PLACES IN THE WORLD YOU CAN’T FLY. Not even close to them. That’s right, chief. There are places where the conditions are such that air travel is impossible. And people live there.”
In the 1990s we dropped high grade explosives in Yugoslavia from an Airbase in Ohio without stopping to land. We could under emergency circumstances have Boots on ground in Mongolia from the US airbases in under 10 hours.
Also most of these superbunkers that might survive nukes generaly would be in super populated areas Ney york,DC,London,Paris,Tokyo places there large amounts of explody things already are in place.
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 am
I think vampirism is spread by way of prions. (A prion is a complex protein that can act as a catalyst to change other proteins to it’s own form. BSE is an example of that.) When a vampire turns into a schaemiac, the prion itself also changes to an emergency configuration, so that instead of creating a new vampire, it creates a zombie.
The schaemiac can control them because it is his signature prion that infected them. Unfortunately, just like new vampires inherit the inability to generate red blood cells (thus need to drink blood), so do zombies inherit the emergency configuration of prion.
Zombies retain some of the abilities of the schaemiac, like bloodsense and the desire for blood, which makes them horrible effective as a fire-and-forget weapon. They’ll hunt down the nearest human and bite them, but are never able to fulfill their hunger so they keep doing it.
They also retain a weak form of (supernatural) regeneration, which causes the zombie look: they tend to rapidly degenerate to the same state of the schaemiac, but as long as their own blood supply lasts, they won’t decay further. They can’t heal wounds or regrow limbs, but as long as the brain and nerve system remains intact the zombies keep going.
Hmm.. if only we had Payne’s research data… he would know 🙂
November 22nd, 2007 at 2:27 am
“… possibly forever. The second graphic novel will definitively answer that …”
Sweet.
Umm. Just noticed a small irony here … anybody notice that the page with AFP lecturing how to destroy the world with zombies is a 101 … ?
Today’s lesson ;
Zombie World Domination 101
Lecturer : Addison F. Payne
November 22nd, 2007 at 2:35 am
Yea, I suggested that pool que up the arse idea to somebody once. Didn’t laugh. Probably the way I worded it. “Why don’t just ask your boss to go fuck herself with a pool que and die?” Don’t ask me for many kinds of advice, or complain to me about your boss.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:22 am
Killing people on the ISS would be relatively easy. There are plenty of weapons that could be used to destroy it. The only hard part would be locating the zombies who knew to run them. China, Russia, and the US all have satellite killer weapons.
There are also plenty of weapons that can collapse bunkers. Nukes set to ground burst wouldn’t do it, but penetrating rounds would.
I think you would have to extend TFZ’s range and say he could control zombies from anywhere in the world, but after that, no problem.
And, dude, we’re not speculating in order to say the story sucks. We’re just trying to make it stronger and better.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:29 am
“And, dude, we’re not speculating in order to say the story sucks. We’re just trying to make it stronger and better.”
That might be YOUR purpose, sure, and there’s nothing wrong with speculation, but the people who say that there are definitely huge errors in the story are are just trying to say the story sucks in any way they can, yes.
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I jst read over what these people said about the errors and honestly, I can’t see any. These people who are fussing about inaccuracies need to get the sticks out of -their- asses.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
“Small bites.” How did nobody notice getting scraped by some stinky guy’s teeth. Seriously, what?
December 12th, 2007 at 9:03 am
THIS IS THE BEST PAGE SO FAR!
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
Now that is a BIG stick.
oh and tegu, shut up.
*checks date* damn…