Albuquerque Comic Con set the bar pretty high for our 2012 convention season. Before I forget, we have to thank Jim, Cody, Alfred, and the small army of volunteers that took care of us during three very, very crazy days (and one very special 11-year-old girl who was Jinxie’s helper throughout the weekend). Without them, your brave commanders would’ve ended up hiding under a table or trying to melt snow to obtain drinking water.
Wait . . . snow?
Yes, you read that right. When Juliette, Jinxie, and I got to town, we were greeted by a sight very few of your commanders have seen lately—snow on the ground. There wasn’t much—or we’d probably have snowball fight pictures for the gallery—but there was enough to make it really cold. Thankfully, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino stayed toasty warm over the course of the con.
On to the fun parts!
We invaded the Hard Rock Friday morning with Neil, Anthony, Noel G., and Madison Lintz. As soon as the tables were set, a sea of folks swept over the convention center. I’m not even sure how many people we talked to that day. There were a lot of them and they were all So Friggin’ Nice. The highlight of that afternoon came when Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation) paid us a surprise visit. I’ll tell you right now, it is nearly impossible to render Jinxie and me speechless. He managed to do so by saying, “Hi.” Before you all groan and disown us, we did rally and had a nice little chat with him.
Friday night we learned the secret to turning Juliette into a giddy little girl (Jinxie side note: which was hysterical). No, I won’t divulge what did the trick. (Did you really think I would? She travels with a crossbow!) After we calmed her down, we hung out and met even more new folks including Daniel Gillies (The Vampire Diaries) and Rachael Leigh Cook (She’s All That). It seemed to be the theme for the weekend—meeting really awesome people. The secondary theme was not being able to keep Juliette in one spot for more than ten seconds.
What do you mean that’s normal? No one can have that much energy!
Saturday, the floodgates opened in the Hard Rock Hotel. You think I’m kidding, but at one point we couldn’t see anything across the hall from the ZSC/Walking Dead table. Except Waldo. He’s getting really bad at hiding these days. Juliette, however, is a pro at hiding and somehow managed to disappear before Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk) paid us a visit. No cha-cha this year.
When we weren’t communicating with potential ZSC members, we ambushed cosplayers. Twice on Saturday the tables were turned, forcing Jinxie and I to save Anthony from having his face chewed off by the undead. His survival training needs to be refreshed. Obviously he’s forgotten the difference between fans, crewmembers, and friggin’ zombies! The smell is the key, dude. Just sayin’.
On Sunday, it became impossible to tell which of us at the table were walkers, and which were zombie slayers. The general consensus was the universe didn’t contain enough coffee to keep us going. Then a strange thing happened, once the fans started coming in, their energy gave us a kick in the backside. If we haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now: we could not continue to survive long convention weekends without you, the fans and crewmembers that stop by to visit with us. Thank you!
The hardest part of any con weekend is saying goodbye. We saw Neil and Noel G. off on a safe flight back home. The rest of us stayed another night and had a nice, calm, quiet dinner . . . okay, I can’t keep a straight face on that one. We weren’t quiet at all as we shared funny stories around the table. It made for an awesome way to wrap up the chaos in Albuquerque.
The story doesn’t end there. Keep an eye out for my travel post. You’ll learn what happens when two of your commanders take a road trip through the desert.
Missed out on the action in Albuquerque? Our next live appearance will be at Monster Mania 21 on March 9-11th in Cherry Hill, NJ.
If you’ve been searching for a way to show your support for the Zombie Survival Crew, look no further. This week–with help from Sergeant at Arms Lora–we’ve released a Twibbon for everyone to use.
How do you use it? Simple! Click on the ZSC Twibbon link and hit “Show my support now!”. It’ll take you to a Twitter and/or Facebook screen asking to allow Twibbon access. Once you confirm, the site will attach the ZSC logo to your avatar. Then everyone will know you’re a proud member of the ZSC.
Go forth, show your Zombie Survival Crew pride on social media. *twirls sword* We’re glad to have you all on our side when the Zombiepocalypse happens.
We’ve been lost in a fog of The Walking Dead withdrawal since the mid-season break began in November. With weeks still ahead of us until episodes resume on AMC February 12th, hope seemed impossible. That was until we received a coded message offering support during these tough times.
Last October, Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansigna released the novel, The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. And now we’ve been given a chance to share a clip of the audiobook, read by Fred Berman.
“Following in the footsteps of the New York Times bestselling graphic novels and the record-breaking new television show, this debut novel in a trilogy of original Walking Dead books chronicles the back story of the comic book series greatest villain, The Governor.
In The Walking Dead universe, there is no greater villain than The Governor. The despot who runs the walled-off town of Woodbury, he has his own sick sense of justice: whether it’s forcing prisoners to battle zombies in an arena for the townspeople’s amusement, or chopping off the appendages of those who cross him. The Governor was voted “Villain of the Year” by Wizard Magazine the year he debuted, and his story arc was the most controversial arc in the history of The Walking Dead comic book series. Now, for the first time, fans of The Walking Dead will discover how The Governor became the man he is, and what drove him to such extremes.”
Hopefully this clip will tide us all over until the mid-season premiere. Enjoy!
Possibly the most fun we’ve had here in the Command Center this month—aside from playing with the new machetes we got in our stockings—came from reading what you all thought our movie reviewer A. Zombie would want from Santa Claus. And while there were a lot of answers that made us laugh so hard our sides hurt, only one person managed to guess more than one item on his wish list.
Without further ado, the winner of our December contest, who’s getting something nifty from our prize closet, is Brim89. Congratulations!
Just for fun, here is A. Zombie’s unedited letter to Santa Claus:
Dear Man in the Red Suit, I’ve been told you are the one to talk to about this present thing. This Christmas I would like the following items delivered to the fake, plastic tree-like monstrosity beside the furnace:
Bone Saw
Suture kit
Lock pick kit
The Walking Dead season 1 Bluray (what? A guy needs good entertainment between bad B movies.)
Gift card to local butcher
A severed arm in a pear tree
GOOD MOVIES
Sincerely, A. Zombie
Remain vigilant, crewmembers. Another opportunity to win something from the ZSC prize closet will be coming up sooner than you think.
With the holidays upon us, things have been a little hectic around the command center. Not only are processing all the reports coming in of suspected zombie activity, and with the cold temperatures who knows what will happen, the Oracle is dancing around sprinkling tinsel everywhere and has put up so many blinking lights the command center looks like a 70’s discotech. So despite the serious task at hand, command does have the holiday spirit.
And now to bring you a little holiday cheer is the commander of the Orange Brigade, our very own RC Murphy. And if this isn’t proof that she’s been spending too much time with the zombie bunnies, then I don’t know what is.
Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse (to the tune of Winter Wonderland)
lyrics by RC Murphy
Zombies groan, can you hear ’em? On the walls, blood is glistenin’ A horrific sight, A world full of fright Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse.
Gone away is the old world, Here to stay is a new world Of death everywhere And being so scared, Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse.
On the sidewalk lays a rotting body, It begins to twitch and moan and groan. He’ll rise, very hungry We’ll arm up then And blow that sucker’s Brains all over town.
Later on, he’ll expire, As we set him on fire His face full of rage We’re saving the day, Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse
Everybody SING! Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse… Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse… Walkin’ in a Zombiepocalypse…
It has been a wild, crazy, and sometimes downright chaotic twelve months. For those of us who were here when the foundation was laid for the Zombie Survival Crew, those twelve months have flown by. When we sat back recently to look over the progress we’ve made we realized how truly astonishing an accomplishment this empire really is.
And we couldn’t have done it without you, our ever-faithful crew members.
Day by day our numbers grow and we’re introduced to new folks that are eager, ready to take on the shambling horde coming our way with nothing more than a 2×4 and their courage to aid them. The sentiment warms our hearts. It also makes us realize how lucky we are that you all have accepted us so readily. Your support has taken the ZSC from, “I wonder if…” to reality with enough energy left over to drag us into our second year of existence.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know that a) the holidays are sneaking up on our collective tail and b) the Zombie Survival Crew’s resident movie reviewer isn’t actually alive. There’s a long story about how we came in possession of the cantankerous A. Zombie. One day we’ll all gather around a campfire and I’ll share the tale. Rest assured, he has been secured in a safe place within the ZSC compound. No accidental nibbles from our reviewer. Promise.
Traditionally, zombies don’t celebrate the holidays, but A. Zombie has been watching us decorate the Command Center and grew curious about all of the hustle and bustle. The other day he slipped a letter under his cell door.
Dear Man in the Red Suit,
I’ve been told you are the one to talk to about this present thing. This Christmas I would like the following items delivered to the fake, plastic tree-like monstrosity beside the furnace:
[…Content removed…]
Sincerely,
A. Zombie
We had to have a little fun with this. Your job, dear ZSC faithful, is to tell us three items from A. Zombie’s letter to Santa Claus. The crewmember that gets the most items correct will win something from our prize closet. Easy as that.
The contest will be open from December 16, 2011 (12-16-2011) until December 24, 2011 (12-24-2011).
Rules and Regulations:
One entry per person
Entries may be submitted in the comments below or emailed to command [at] zombiesurvivalcrew [dot] com with the subject line “A. Zombie’s Wish List”.
Entries submitted via Twitter or Facebook will be disqualified.
Entries must be received by December 23, 2011 (12-23-2011) at 11:59 PM PST.
Entrants must be registered members of zombiesurvivalcrew.com. (If you are not, registering is FREE and EASY. Sign up HERE.)
When submitting entries, you give Zombie Survival Crew permission to post your name and contest entry on zombiesurvivalcrew.com and its associated social media outlets.
Winners will be notified via email.
So, do you have any idea what a zombie would want as a present? Tell us what you think.
The mid-season finale for season 2 of The Walking Dead had a lot riding on it. I’m not talking about character drama, either. This first half of the season needed to live up to audience’s expectations. We were given a grab-you-by-the-throat first season of TWD. With only six episodes to make an impact, the creators and writers drove the plot and us hard, fast, and dirty. The pacing became a huge part of the appeal. With more episodes to play with, the pacing has suffered greatly. And unfortunately, it is turning people away. Episode 7 had to snag viewers attention again before the break. Did it succeed?
They wasted no time jumping into the major issue at hand: the barn. Glenn’s loyalty is seriously tested in his budding relationship with Maggie. He is torn between keeping secrets he’s sworn to by someone he just met, but feels a deep connection with, or manning up and telling the group of people that have helped him survive this long. In the end, I think he chose correctly and I think Maggie understands he did what he had to. She’s beginning to realize Hershel’s way of coping with the changes in the world aren’t the only way to do things. It only took her nearly being turned into a walker at the pharmacy to figure it out, though. Sometimes it takes a close call that rattles your world to see clearly.
The debate between Rick and Hershel about the occupants of the barn brought up a very good question: In a situation like the zombie apocalypse, is it naive to assume that all humans should band together to protect each other? Rick clings on to the hope that despite their differences in opinion, his crew and Hershel’s family can still coexist, all in the name of being safe. But from what we’ve seen, Rick forcing the issue of banding together has caused more issues. Hershel pulls his family and supplies in closer to his chest. He flat-out refuses any help from the other survivors. There’s a line in the sand, or rather a trench that’s filled with the fires of hell. Hershel cannot bring himself to even approach the line and consider the two factions becoming one group. They question his faith, the way he’s done things since even before the walkers came into existence. For someone living on the edge, that is as dangerous as approaching a zombie unarmed. In Hershel’s world it is his way or go away. No one is allowed to question him.
In the face-off between Dale and Shane we see glimpses of the same ruthless attempt to cling to control from both of the men. Unfortunately Dale isn’t a fighter. He will protect. He will give sage advice and be there if you need someone to unload all of your issues on, but he isn’t a trigger man. He tries to stand up for what he believes is the right thing and is cowed by Shane’s overwhelming presence. Does he see logic in the way Shane is handling things? Probably not. Dale isn’t a fool, though. He knows the kind of man Shane is. He also knows he can rely on that cold inner core Shane possesses to get things done, even if it scares the heck out of him.
Someone I thought would always keep that cold core is Daryl. This season has turned my perception of the mighty squirrel hunter on ear. He’s deep. Emotional. Caring. And completely clueless on how to make any sort of relationship with others work. Each time he opens up, he instantly shuts down and reverts to the “old” Daryl. Carol is the only person to consistently see into his heart, but not even she is safe from the out lash of self-loathing Daryl dives in to. He constantly slips back into the mindset likely formed by his lack of a real family unit. Why love yourself when no one else seems to give a damn? Carol cares and makes it very clear he can’t push her away. Will this tentative step towards an actual connection with another person (one not a figment of his imagination) lead to something more?
[Caution: spoilers below. If you have not watched the episode yet, walk away.]
I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the final scene of the episode. Everything in the last six episodes came to a boiling point. Shane gave all of that anger, frustration, and lack of forward movement a voice. A very loud voice. I may not be on Team Shane, but he did what he thought he had to do to keep the family he wishes were his safe. Could he have gone about it better? Totally. It still had to be taken care of. How many more walkers would the barn have held? Did Hershel honestly think he could keep going for god knows how long simply shoving the undead away under a metaphorical rug? Eventually the rug gets so lumpy you trip and crack your head open. I think Hershel would have gone on until he himself became infected. He was so set in his idea that the zombies are still living that he couldn’t see the danger staring at him.
Even with Shane being the voice of the turmoil on the farm, it ended up being Rick who took care of the most difficult part of the entire season thus far. My own frustration came to a head when Sophia emerged from the barn. They’ve been searching so hard for so long and she’d been maybe a hundred yards away the whole time. When I sat to think about the episode, I had to wonder if Hershel realized that one of the walkers he’d captured was the little girl they were all looking for. Were his protests to leave the barn alone multifaceted? We know he thought he was keeping his “sick” family safe, but had he been hiding the truth of Sophia’s condition as well?
For as many questions as the mid-season finale (finally) answered, it posed a ton of others. Will Rick move his crew off the farm? Can Hershel look past his faith to see the world for how it really is? What will Maggie and Glenn do? I could go on and on with the questions rattling around my head. Which I probably will considering it is a very long wait until February when the second half of The Walking Dead season 2 kicks off.
Rating: NR (mild violence, sexual references, adult language)
If anyone ever tries to convince you that the ladies from the ZSC are kind and forgiving, laugh at them. They have torture down to an art form. Normally, watching zombie flicks isn’t too bad. I’ve actually enjoyed the majority of them… until today. I tried to like Last of the Living, I really did, but there were too many flaws to do the premise justice.
Three guys find themselves the only survivors in New Zealand after a zombie outbreak. Their main nemesis isn’t the undead trying the chew off their faces, but total and utter boredom, having no one else to interact with. Or so they thought… Until they blunder into a church and miraculously find a scientist working to find a cure.
The three friends are caricatures. Bad ones. You have the egotistical actor, the shy nerd, and the failed jock/musician. Ten minutes into the movie I wanted to gnaw through their vocal cords. This is a first for me; I’ve usually made it half way through before becoming ravenously hungry.
On the zombie action front, there wasn’t really any. The undead got a couple decent jump scares, but for the most part they were just slow, cheesy, and apparently not very hungry. They didn’t attack so much as stumble into the lead actors on accident. Lazy zombies starve, someone should tell them that.
One thing that did work was the fact that these characters are so self-centered that they don’t seem capable of adapting to the fact that the world as they know it has come to an end. They spend their time ogling women in exercise DVDs and worrying about getting a copy of the latest CD from their favorite band instead of worrying about the long-term ramifications of what is going on around them, the apocalypse. That character flaw was the most believable thing written into the script.
I’m going to give Last of the Living two and a half bashed in heads out of five. The premise had promise, but overall execution just didn’t work. Parts where they could have been moving the plot along were filled with bad jokes. If you want a movie to sit and watch for the sake of watching a b-movie, oh and zombie farts, this is a decent choice.
This week The Walking Dead seemed to be missing something. They covered a lot of ground as far as addressing each characters plot arc but there was a key something missing. Oh, I know. Action.
Don’t mistake, I do enjoy watching our survivors grow and evolve to adjust to the harsh reality of the zombie apocalypse. That being said, it is a zombie apocalypse. They are fighting every day to survive. We were spoiled by the fast pace of the first season. The writers couldn’t take an entire episode to tie up all of their loose plot strings before the mid-season finale. That’s what they did here, gave us what I refer to as a “catch up” episode to put the ducks in a row in prep for next week, which from the previews promises the action we missed this week and then some. I hope.
We finally get to see Carl back on his feet this week. Right away it is painfully obvious that being shot has affected how he views the world. Carl is beginning to mature faster than we, with our modern sensibilities, think he should. But there is nothing Lori and Rick can do to stop this natural progression. He is old enough to realize their dire situation and wants to help protect the people he loves. Carl probably sees the world with truer eyes than anyone else when he tells his mother about the missing chicken, “Maybe she got eaten. Everything’s food for something else.” That’s the reality they live in. Some of the survivors simply refuse to see it.
That friggen barn is going to give me fits. Hershel’s ideals surrounding the occupants of the barn seem utterly ridiculous when put in contrast to what we’ve seen our band of nomads go through in and around Atlanta. We know these creatures are dead. We know that the synapses, those electric keys to what makes a human a human, aren’t working. All of this was covered for Rick’s crew at the CDC. There is no cure. These people aren’t sick. They are dead. Again, you can see Hershel’s faith coming in to play. He can’t kill the people he knows and loves. The guilt of putting them down would shatter the last marble he’s got rattling around in his stubborn brain. So instead of doing what we deem humane, he keeps zombie pets. To him it is the right thing because the Bible tells him not to kill. But what does the Good Book teach us about survival? Self defense? Turn the other cheek with a zombie and you’ll get a hole in your face.
Turning a blind eye to other situations can land you in the same sort of hot water, only this time the scars are emotional. Lori tries everything she can to avoid telling Rick about her pregnancy. She talks herself in endless circles about the future and what it could hold for her family. Admittedly, what set her off was the near-death of her son, Carl. As a mother I hope to never, ever be in a similar situation. Watching Lori go through it was bad enough. But… are her fears grounded? She says, “Memories are what keep me going”, then goes on to predict her unborn child’s future of nothing but pain and an early death. Life is what you make of it. If they leave the farm, they have months to find a new home base and settle in before the baby comes. There are plenty of areas similar to Hershel’s farm, in close proximity to cities with supplies, which they could move into. One has to wonder if she is worrying about her baby or what will happen if Rick entertains the idea that the baby isn’t his. She’d lose her hero, her husband, and the only one she can actually trust to keep her and Carl safe.
Dragged into the middle of Lori’s crisis is poor Glenn. He is trying, he really is, but still has a long way to go to be the hero he wants to become. The first step? Learn how to lie better. I’d play poker against Glenn any day. That lack of being able to hide the ugly truth is, unfortunately, a key tool of a leader. Sometimes you need to keep things from others to keep them calm and manageable. Rick does this often to give his crew the sense of stability they need while recovering from injuries. What Glenn isn’t lacking, though, is nerve. When the one person he really sees as his to protect is in danger, he went all Rambo. I would like to remind everyone that severing the spine does not kill a walker. Headshots, guys. Glenn nearly forgot, but it did make for an interesting zombie effect. After his hero moment, Maggie finally acknowledges what is inside his heart. She also sees how, in his effort to become more, to rise in the pack structure, Glenn could get himself good and dead.
If you paid attention to this episode, you will notice that there is one character with his nose in everything. The writers have taken Dale’s position as the “wise old man” a tad too far. We already knew that not much escapes his attention. Dale isn’t out in the woods, cut off from the core of the action. No, he stays perched on top on the RV simply watching. But it really bugs me that they felt in order to tie up all of these story lines they needed to use Dale so blatantly. He’s there when Carl expresses his desire to grow up more. Dale is the one to confront Hershel about the barn’s occupants. Heck, he even tries to help Lori about her baby issues. And the topper, Dale goes nose to nose with Shane about his erratic behavior after Otis’s death. There are other, less obvious ways to wrap things up for the mid-season finale. We didn’t need Dale to narrate it for us. He’s far too good a character to use like that.
Next week is the last episode we’ll get in 2011. There are still a lot of questions to be answered. Is Sophia still alive? Will Lori abort the pregnancy after all? Is Shane finally at the end of his rope? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Albuquerque Comic Con set the bar pretty high for our 2012 convention season. Before I forget, we have to thank Jim, Cody, Alfred, and the small army of volunteers that took care of us during three very, very crazy days (and one very special 11-year-old girl who was Jinxie’s helper throughout the weekend). Without them, your brave commanders would’ve ended up hiding under a table or trying to melt snow to obtain drinking water.
Yes, you read that right. When Juliette, Jinxie, and I got to town, we were greeted by a sight very few of your commanders have seen lately—snow on the ground. There wasn’t much—or we’d probably have snowball fight pictures for the gallery—but there was enough to make it really cold. Thankfully, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino stayed toasty warm over the course of the con.
Saturday, the floodgates opened in the Hard Rock Hotel. You think I’m kidding, but at one point we couldn’t see anything across the hall from the ZSC/Walking Dead table. Except Waldo. He’s getting really bad at hiding these days. Juliette, however, is a pro at hiding and somehow managed to disappear before Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk) paid us a visit. No cha-cha this year.
When we weren’t communicating with potential ZSC members, we ambushed cosplayers. Twice on Saturday the tables were turned, forcing Jinxie and I to save Anthony from having his face chewed off by the undead. His survival training needs to be refreshed. Obviously he’s forgotten the difference between fans, crewmembers, and friggin’ zombies! The smell is the key, dude. Just sayin’.
From behind the zombie bunny cages of 
“Following in the footsteps of the New York Times bestselling graphic novels and the record-breaking new television show, this debut novel in a trilogy of original Walking Dead books chronicles the back story of the comic book series greatest villain, The Governor.
Contest Ninja: RC Murphy
With the holidays upon us, things have been a little hectic around the command center. Not only are processing all the reports coming in of suspected zombie activity, and with the cold temperatures who knows what will happen, the Oracle is dancing around sprinkling tinsel everywhere and has put up so many blinking lights the command center looks like a 70’s discotech. So despite the serious task at hand, command does have the holiday spirit.
And blow that sucker’s
It has been a wild, crazy, and sometimes downright chaotic twelve months. For those of us who were here when the foundation was laid for the Zombie Survival Crew, those twelve months have flown by. When we sat back recently to look over the progress we’ve made we realized how truly astonishing an accomplishment this empire really is.
Contest ninja: RC Murphy
