The Death of Vampires (as a pre-cursor to the Age of the NWO Zombie Apocalypse, and the eventual refinement of the Human genome)
The cultural transition from Vampires to Zombies is an interesting paradigm shift. Considering the Vampire trope has been pretty much present ever since Bram Stoker wrote Dracula is testament to it's durability as a myth, and it's ability to successfully transform itself according to popular culture's fickle tastes, has given the Vampire a rich and varied canon for writers to draw upon.
From "Nosferatu", to "Buffy", from "Interview with a Vampire" to "Blade" Vampires have shared an ancient, pre Stoker commonality of rules, but not one so rigid that they couldn't adapt to a more modern World.
In Buffy, Angelus set a groundbreaking precedent, when his Soul was restored to him. Suddenly we had a "good" Vampire, one who was capable of giving and receiving human love, of (more or less) successfully adopting a kind of Methadone recovery program, where The Thirst is managed with regular doses of Pig's blood. His atonement pretty much follows the AA 12 Step Program, with "The Powers that Be" being his "Higher Power", The Thirst, being perfectly analogous with Alcoholism.
Buffy is his sponsor, her crew, are his meetings or support group, and his capacity to seek redemption for his past savagery, was returned by default with his soul. Angel is a true Apostate, he turns against his own kind and allies himself with the Slayer, the traditional Nemesis of his kind.
While this added an interesting dynamic to the theme, it also marked the beginning of the Vampire's descent from it's Zenith of undead cultural supremacy. All it took was for one major player (Angel) to turn traitor to his Vampire bredrin to effect this shift.
As a direct result of the Buffy / Angel dynamic, we became introduced to the Dynastic elitism that represented the Old School "Blade" type of Vampires . Despite the Quasi- Imperialistic conservatism of their Ancient Clans and Houses, the rot set in. Complacent in their supercilious elitism, they're already doomed.
Angel's Vampirism, and his alliance with the Slayer's cause, was a symptom of his Soul's restoration. He was most certainly still a Vampire, (albeit one with a Soul) with all the same Vampire powers, strengths and heightened senses that he'd always had, and his inner conflict of Good Angel / Evil Angelus was explored thoroughly with the spin-off series. And Charisma Carpenter as Angel's Jiminy Cricket style conscience added a fap-worthy sexual frission, that Buffy's shallow, blonde, "psycho killer with a heart" could never quite manage. This point is iterated over and over by just about every other female in the whole Buffy franchise being way hotter than Michelle Geller. Willow, Hope, Cordelia, Faith, Drusilla, Tara, Kendra . . . .sorry Buffers, but you're the ugly duckling.
Getting back on topic, we saw Angel's spiritual healing, via his service to "The Powers That Be" and his Soul's growth away from the self centred psychopathy of his Vampire past and his subsequent rediscovery of altruism and conscience. But the nut cruncher was that he was still a Vampire. His polarity shift was a spiritual one, and driven by his Soul's restoration. Angel betrayed every Vampire precedent for an inexplicable, touching, and occasionally hilarious Buffy-love.
Next nail in the trope's coffin was Blade. With him, we got a very different kind of Beast. Blade gave us a new Vampire type, the Daywalker. A mutated Vampire "AntiChrist" who fulfilled some old Vampire eschaton prophecy, and who had evolved away from the Ancient Vampire traditional Nightbreed, and mutated into a hybridised Human / Vampire genotype, andf he could pass this genetic shift along to other Vampires, via a serum that allowed The Thirst to be managable. More importantly, he had immunity to something that had been anathema to every Vampire in history, also something that every other Vampire secretly coveted. He could go out in Sunlight without getting burnt to a painful and permanent Death.
He also wasn't affected by crucifixes, Holy Water or any of the old bugbears that previously afflicted Vampires. Stronger than either Humans or Vampires, feared and rejected by both, his anti-Vampiric activity wasn't spiritually driven ilke Angel's was. Blade was fuelled by his own self-loathing, which manifested as a hatred of Vampires. He still had the pathological Vampire mindset. He still revelled in killing and death, but he had the biological needs of a new, mutated mix. Vampire and Human. A new species, with a clear, unambiguous inner conflict playing it's diametrically oppositional genetic imperatives off against each other
Angel didn't kill other Vampires because he hated them, he did it because of his growing morality, and idealism. He still empathised with his Vampire victims, but he traded off the bloodlust for the Panacea of being able to play "Hide the sausage" with Buffy. Then the idiot fell in love with the meat. Things got . . . messy. A moonstruck, loved up Vampire, infected with ethical conflict is no good for anyone. His heart, broken by Buffy's fickle need for badboy sex with Spike, (Angel's 13th step Vampire project) he took his hurty tender Vampire feelz, and left the Hellmouth of Sunnydale, and took his Bwaaah to (where else?) LA.
The "Wolfram and Hart" Law Firm explored in the spin-off series, "Angel" wasn't really much of a deviation from previous canon, but the Clans and Houses of Blade were.
They were modeled on Corporate Structure, and this factor, along with the War of attrition waged by Blade, brought more of the old ways crashing down. The Blade Vampires had unwittingly become infected by the human socio/ psychopathic mindset of Corporate entity.
Corporate Vampires are driven by an exponentially increasing need for money. So economics becomes their primary dynamic, The Thirst expands to include the need for an economic Power structure. This suggests the rot had already set in before Blade began decimating their Clans with his pseudo-shaolin kung-fu training, his Bladed weapon fetish, and his James Bond / Luthercorp spiritual and tech guru support team.
The fact that Blade was also Black supports another aspect of humanity has crept in and infected the Clans. Racism. After all, you can say what you like about the traditional Vampire roles as shapeshifting Batwinged creatures of the night, Satanic blood drinkers. At best, amoral. At worst, Castle Wolfenstein style Nazi Stormtroopers of Death. Pathologically self centered, yes. Thirst driven evil frenzied gore addicts, totally.
But until Blade, there was no precedent for distinguishing between human ethnicities. But when the Blade Vampire Clan Chiefs say "Daywalker", they might as well be saying "Nigger", because Blade as "Daywalker" represents a new, divergent ethnicity of Vampire, and their hatred of Blade and his Cabal, is fueled by their fear of "his kind" coming over and taking all their jobs, and walking around in daylight without burning up, mixing the pure ancient Vampire elitism with the unter-menschen livestock.
Then it all descends into the corrupted, sanitised and impotent "Sparkle in the Sunlight" titwank of Twilight. And I'm not even going to examine that any further, save to say that it's proof that the much loved Vampire trope is dead. All that's left is the twitching undead corpse of Edward Cullen, trying to pass his cold, lifeless seed into Bella's (Humanity's) genetically unviable uterus, and everyone is focused on the CGI False Flag enemy of the Lycans. Pffft!
Too late, Vampire Bitches! You took your eye off the ball, and now you have to pay the inevitable price of failure. Prepare yourselves for the New World Order. The Plague of the Zomby Apocalypse will ensure that none but the strongest and most adaptable of the Homo genome survives.
Homo Sanguinus and Homo Lupus will become obsolete, and die out like Neanderthal Man. Blade in this aspect, becomes the Luciferic Messiah, the Herald of the New Dawn taking the Light to the Dark places of the Old Ones. Blade ensures the Homo Sapien type aligns itself with the hybrid vigour of his own "Sapio-Sanguinus" genome.
Only an alliance of this type can prevail against the genetically engineered "Crossed" super-infection of sadistically priapic rape-zombies. Devoid of morality, conscience, and impulse control, these Plus-faced fucks will rape, ravage and decimate humanity's weakest, until their built in lack of self preservation, and propensity towards bi-polar boredom sees them die of exposure, starvation,
or disease. And out of this ruined World's rubble and bones, from their refuges, bunkers, and fortified hiding places, steps the New Flesh.
When you hear them calling out in the Streets,
"Hide yo Dolphins, hide yo chillun, hide yo clean-faced humans, dey's comin' an they's a rapin'!"
You'd better start running for the hills.
The fuck did I just read?
You had me through the Blade stuff and then it just seemed to go into nonsense :?
I loved this.
Just the right amount of truth, satire, pinealism, and mindfuck, to truly stand out as a very excellent, entertaining, well written piece about... well, nothing really.
Bravo!
Quote from: BadBeast on July 26, 2014, 08:43:46 PM
When you hear them calling out in the Streets,
"Hide yo Dolphins, hide yo chillun, hide yo clean-faced humans, dey's comin' an they's a rapin'!"
You'd better start running for the hills.
:mittens:
I predict vampires are making a comeback (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654620/).
Quote from: Cain on July 28, 2014, 01:41:57 PM
I predict vampires are making a comeback (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654620/).
The first episode was certainly good.
I've read the first two parts of the trilogy. It's fairly decent. Definitely works better as a TV series though, I found myself thinking that as I read it (no surprise - it was pitched as a TV series first). The scientific approach to vampirism is interesting, and sorta harks back to Bram Stoker, which is a nice touch. And the old man's story is, once you know it, brilliantly terrifying, and totally in keeping with Del Toro's approach to horror.
OP was awesome. :lulz:
Quote from: Cain on July 28, 2014, 01:41:57 PM
I predict vampires are making a comeback (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654620/).
You know what I want to see make a comeback? Old fashioned cures for vampires.
Related, because I'm still laughing at these:
http://thedollop.libsyn.com/the-dollop-xii-american-vampire-panic
TB. Eating hearts. Corpses not decomposing in winter and much, much more.
Quote from: Cain on July 28, 2014, 01:41:57 PM
I predict vampires are making a comeback (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654620/).
It's not just the strain now that I think of it, Penny Dreadful had an understated vampire plot that was overshadowing the season but played a very small role in the individual episodes.
It was like vampires were taboo for the entire time the twilight films were running but now it's ok for them to have a resurgence.
The Strain is just so effortlessly sexy :lulz:
I really got to thinking about this vampire -> zombie shift in thinking about "who is more an enemy to society", and it makes a lot of sense.
The vampire has the appearance, to me, as being a sort of ostracised, "unique weirdo". In the times of stoker or the film nosferatu, culture was aligned as such that the "unique weirdo" -- the societal deviant -- was an unpredictable threat that, by not "playing by the rules", appeared to have a sort of magic power (seen in vampires with their abilities to hypnotise or sneak about transformed into a heavy mist) to confound "natural" (cultural) law.
In the time since stoker and nosferatu, weve had cultural revolution after the next -- between civil rights, womens rights, the sexual revolution, the studies by kinsey, et al, and even the subtle glorification of the deviant in media such as marvel comics, weve entered into an age where EVERYONE thinks of themself as some variety of deviant weirdo...
from furries to juggalos to discordians...from faggots to feminists to people who enjoy autoerotic asphyxiation...
Weve turned into a society where everyone sees themselves as the deviant...which brings us to the "new enemy" seen in the zombie.
The zombie is a mass horde -- a mass monoculture -- that to the individual who sees himself as some sort of special snowflake, is an aberration that tries to forcibly convert the "unique weirdo" into one of their own.
With a bit of social critism, though, the zombie also shows off the egocentricism of humanity...not in himself, but in the survivor trope. Everyones group or tribe or whatever plans on what to do when "the great other" of everyone else gets infected, but out of sheer ego, no one considers what happens when they themselves become zombies -- its too humbling to think that ones own unique deviancy would succumb to "the other's" monoculture -- that ones own identity could be co-opted, defanged, "infected" and put to use for the "zombie horde", just as easily as anyone elses.
I dunno? Sound reasonable?
Quote from: trix on July 27, 2014, 01:09:02 AM
I loved this.
Just the right amount of truth, satire, pinealism, and mindfuck, to truly stand out as a very excellent, entertaining, well written piece about... well, nothing really.
Bravo!
Thanks, yeah, sometimes the mix is a bit muddy, other times, it's too clearly up itself, and sometimes it's just about right. Those are times the subject seems to be the least important part of the whole thing. I so nearly carried on with a bit about Werewolves, but who the hell has the time to take Werewolves seriously?
Quote from: xXRon_Paul_42016Xxx(weed) on July 27, 2014, 03:49:50 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on July 26, 2014, 08:43:46 PM
When you hear them calling out in the Streets,
"Hide yo Dolphins, hide yo chillun, hide yo clean-faced humans, dey's comin' an they's a rapin'!"
You'd better start running for the hills.
:mittens:
Another "Crossed" fan?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on July 28, 2014, 03:29:13 PM
OP was awesome. :lulz:
Thanks Roger, glad you liked it.
Quote from: Cain on July 28, 2014, 01:41:57 PM
I predict vampires are making a comeback (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654620/).
Well, I really hope so, Vampires have always had a pathos factor that's missing in all other "undead" genres (except perhaps Frankenstien) and I think this definitely makes for better entertainment, especially when it's done well. The Zombie thing has been missing an important element, since (the otherwise wholly watchable) Resident Evil, and that's the tongue in cheek humour that made Romero's Dawn of the Dead such a cult watch.
There were rules back then. The shuffling, aimless gait, with arms outstretched, "The Zombies are coming, walk a bit faster" kinda thing. The choice of weapon, either something that lops off the head in one stroke, or if firearms are available, a sawn off shot gun. And someone always has to make the mistake of setting one of them on fire, so they can stumble around and set everything on fire.
Saying that, I enjoyed The Walking Dead immensely, but it did get a bit predictable. (I still haven't seen the last season) and some of the "Crossed" story arcs really hit the spot. Especially the one about the writers weekend course, with that Gideon bloke, mostly because the main character was so obviously based on a coked up, out of control Grant Morrison. :lulz:
Even though, strictly speaking, The Crossed aren't Zombies, the best bits of the stories are when the remnants of humanity act in just as shocking and ruthless ways as the Crossed. Only The Crossed do it without the whiny self recrimination that the surviving humans do.
Terry Pratchett has also been quietly adding depth and humour to the Vampire, Zombie, and (to a lesser extent) Werewolf tropes. And he never loses sight of the (I think) most important fact, that however evil or ruthlessly driven by bloodlust these undead bastards are, it's always humans who are the biggest fucking monsters of all, something that we should always remember, no matter how immersed in a fictional genre we get.
With regards to The Walking Dead, you indeed have not missed much.
Once the zombie threat becomes understood, there is nothing much where a story can go from there...except to rebuild civilization. And that's just a bunch of messy "just-so" stories based around the prejudices and politics of the author. Which is frequently boring.
Faust is right, there did seem to be an embargo on the fanged fiends while Twilight was popular...no doubt due to commitment to sparkle-motion. I've not seen The Vampire Diaries, but it is apparently quite popular, as well as True Blood, both of which did overlap the Twilight era, but mostly distanced themselves from it in both obvious and subtle ways.
Quote from: Cain on July 31, 2014, 09:00:16 AM
With regards to The Walking Dead, you indeed have not missed much.
Once the zombie threat becomes understood, there is nothing much where a story can go from there...except to rebuild civilization. And that's just a bunch of messy "just-so" stories based around the prejudices and politics of the author. Which is frequently boring.
I will say that the disparity between the walking dead TV show and comics couldn't be larger. It can be summed up that the TV show is about heroic characters with a show that focusses on Zombies.
While the Walking dead Comics have very little to do with zombies, instead it is the focus on a group of broken people who continue to lose what little humanity they have left.
The TV show squanders every emotional growth the comic gives them because they have to keep Rick as an identifiable paragon of manliness.
I don't want to go into it too much, all I can do is recommend the comic (and tell tale games) as a great character drama.
For those watching the TV show here is a big example; After the prisoner and the governor arc, the group come across a more "green" set of survivors, they are so mistrustful they don't even try to communicate with them, they just immediately butcher them in case they were a threat. Everything like this is whitewashed away for the show.
I have heard the comics are very worthwhile, sadly I have little time to get into them as is. I have seen some of the games being played, and they certainly seem superior, throwing in real moral dilemmas where it's very possible to screw up and call it wrong.
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Excellent analysis. I think I need to re-watch Blade.
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
Yeah, I've seen the same stuff. More undertone than explicit, but there's a fair bit of it.
Of course, the idea that zombies are a metaphor for the great, irrational masses is hardly a new one, or that vampires are a metaphor for Jews/aristocrats/bankers (depending on the prejudices of the particular author. Stoker was fairly anti-Semitic, maybe not by the standards of his time, but certainly by the standards of our time. And to go back to The Strain, the Stoneheart Group, a New York based financial somethingorother arranged for the transport of the Master into the USA).
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 08:18:41 AM
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
That's why every time a kid tries to buy Guns 'N Amo, the vendor should slip them a Penthouse instead (worked for me) 8)
Quote from: Cain on August 01, 2014, 09:11:32 AM
...
And to go back to The Strain, the Stoneheart Group, a New York based financial somethingorother arranged for the transport of the Master into the USA).
There was something about that. The First that came to mind was Firestone...
Quote from: LuciferX on August 01, 2014, 12:15:01 PM
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 08:18:41 AM
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
That's why every time a kid tries to buy Guns 'N Amo, the vendor should slip them a Penthouse instead (worked for me) 8)
Kids still buy print media?
I mean, this newfangled internet thing lets me learn about firearms AND have all the content of nudie mags just the same...
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 02:57:31 PM
Kids still buy print media?
I mean, this newfangled internet thing lets me learn about firearms AND have all the content of nudie mags just the same...
The kids that don't have their own phone/computer/tablet do.
Quote from: Sita on August 01, 2014, 03:22:00 PM
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 02:57:31 PM
Kids still buy print media?
I mean, this newfangled internet thing lets me learn about firearms AND have all the content of nudie mags just the same...
The kids that don't have their own phone/computer/tablet do.
And it's not like google has any trouble re-pointing things.
Quote from: Cain on July 31, 2014, 09:00:16 AM
With regards to The Walking Dead, you indeed have not missed much.
Once the zombie threat becomes understood, there is nothing much where a story can go from there...except to rebuild civilization. And that's just a bunch of messy "just-so" stories based around the prejudices and politics of the author. Which is frequently boring.
Faust is right, there did seem to be an embargo on the fanged fiends while Twilight was popular...no doubt due to commitment to sparkle-motion. I've not seen The Vampire Diaries, but it is apparently quite popular, as well as True Blood, both of which did overlap the Twilight era, but mostly distanced themselves from it in both obvious and subtle ways.
Funny thing is, it's the "just-so" element that terrifies me the most. Instead of being an artificial device, it faithfully represents how mindlessly we incorporate the bulshit being peddled to explain how we got here.
BadBeast is right, humans are very scary indeed.
Wonderful post, BB.
I haven't really been keeping up with a lot of these series, but my interest is piquéd.
I HAVE been watching True Blood recently and, while at times soap operaish, it still hold my interest. While the vampire trope is there, it takes on the 'rules' of the old World of Darkness RPG. That alone, takes an interesting take on the genre. Breaking the trope down into clans allows for a pretty easy meta commentary about the humans (true monsters).
As far as the zombie trope goes, I thought a really good perspective was David Wong's This Book is Full of Spiders. Wong brings that line between humans and zombies to a nice parallel and throws in a bit of commentary along the way.
"Crossed WYWH" finished this week, and while The Crossed don't fit all the parameters of the Zombie trope,
the best story arcs of the franchise concentrate on the survivors, who very much DO fit. In this respect, writers Si Spurrier, and (franchise owner) Garth Ennis have written the only arcs that I'd really recommend to anyone. David Lapham has his moments, but he doesn't seem to rise above the rape / gore aspect of Crossed, which probably sells more comics, but doesn't really explore any new ground.
I've always thought the most interesting aspect of any horror story is the way ordinary people react to the extreme situations presented. While all the best stories of whatever genre seem to have redemption as their theme, good horror also examines how easily previously "good" people succumb to the most unspeakable acts of evil.
Frankenstein exemplifies and defines the "Monster" trope perfectly. It's not Frankenstein's monster that descends into evil or morally ambiguous behavior, it's Dr Frankenstein himself, and the people around him that are the real monsters.
I tried Crossed, just don't think I landed on the right episodes.
Kind of related, debutant feature by writer/director/producer/actor, The Battery, not bad.
About monsters, I agree, and think that goes back to definition as chimera.
Here's the link for "Wish you were Here" far and away the best written Crossed arc, (Save for Garth Ennis's bit at the launch of "Badlands") Enjoy.
http://www.crossedcomic.com/category/chapters/
I read Garth Ennis's run and it was disgusting, unenjoyable though ended on funny note I didn't think I'd read any more of it.
I read a bit of Wish you were here (Si Spurrier wrote it I think) and I found myself oddly bored (maybe I was expecting the same level of revulsion as Ennis's run). Not sure which is worse, being physically sickened by what your reading or bored, either way, crossed definitely isn't a comic for me.
I've had a soft spot for Crossed since the first Ennis run and the "Salt!" scene. There's some seriously good writing in there, particularly on WYWH but many will be unwilling to deal with the overt sexdeathkill that is a fairly constant feature. That's one of the reasons WYWH worked quite well as their appearances and interactions was relatively limited and used fairly well. There's a good chunk of content which is just murder porn though and it's certainly one of these things where the quality varies vastly from writer to writer.
That said though, if you don't want to fish through murderporn for a decent story, I couldn't really blame you. There's plenty of good tales that don't rely on fuckkillfuck to get their horror across.
Avoid Lapham like the plague. Don't even consider "Ferals" as it's pretty much Crossed with Werewolves and no plot/humour.
The dolphin thing was real funny, then I'm intrigued to know what the Cross(Ed) represents. Kind of wanted to breeze through some stuff and probably would prefer hardcopy to slow refresh-rates. Good incentive, still my attitude kind of reflects the narrator's indifference, less of that framing would work better for me.
Quote from: Junkenstein on August 12, 2014, 11:36:03 AM
I've had a soft spot for Crossed since the first Ennis run and the "Salt!" scene.
Oh, the"Salt scene". It's writing like this that makes me love Garth Ennis so much.
Quote from: LuciferX on August 12, 2014, 10:19:09 PM
The dolphin thing was real funny, then I'm intrigued to know what the Cross(Ed) represents. Kind of wanted to breeze through some stuff and probably would prefer hardcopy to slow refresh-rates
WYWH is all taken from the perspective of Shaky's diary. The Crossed are humanity, after some time released engineered plague got loose from a Lab. Garth Ennis's arc "Bloodlines" covers it, (although I haven't read it yet) WYWH has been released as 3 TPBs. They're all up on Pirate Bay for free if you wanted to download them. Seeing as they were all a free webcomic anyway, there shouldn't be too much of a conscience twinge.
Just finished wish you were here, probably gonna buy some of the other volumes. Anyone have any suggestions on which ones are best or are they all pretty good?
Quote from: BadBeast on August 15, 2014, 06:53:24 PM
Quote from: Junkenstein on August 12, 2014, 11:36:03 AM
I've had a soft spot for Crossed since the first Ennis run and the "Salt!" scene.
Oh, the"Salt scene". It's writing like this that makes me love Garth Ennis so much.
Quote from: LuciferX on August 12, 2014, 10:19:09 PM
The dolphin thing was real funny, then I'm intrigued to know what the Cross(Ed) represents. Kind of wanted to breeze through some stuff and probably would prefer hardcopy to slow refresh-rates
WYWH is all taken from the perspective of Shaky's diary. The Crossed are humanity, after some time released engineered plague got loose from a Lab. Garth Ennis's arc "Bloodlines" covers it, (although I haven't read it yet) WYWH has been released as 3 TPBs. They're all up on Pirate Bay for free if you wanted to download them. Seeing as they were all a free webcomic anyway, there shouldn't be too much of a conscience twinge.
Thank you. Not meaning to whinge about it here. I actually liked the lay-out, just a little indisposed at the moment for totally unrelated space/time reasons. :)
Quote from: Raz Tech on August 16, 2014, 12:13:51 AM
Just finished wish you were here, probably gonna buy some of the other volumes. Anyone have any suggestions on which ones are best or are they all pretty good?
Quality varies drastically depending on the author, the art is pretty consistent.
I'd suggest the original Ennis run (Horsecock and the "salt" scenes set the tone excellently. The WYWH run is also up there and I'd strongly suggest reading it in order or you'll spoil huge chunks for yourself by accident.
Beyond that, It's pretty open. The various Ennis runs in "Badlands" are worth a look(first 3 and 50-56 i believe, one or two others as well.), but by and large the all function as standalone peices so it's a fair bit of pot luck. There's some that are up there with Ennis/Spurier in quality but to be blunt, not many.
Badbeast - Lay your hands on the bloodlines run ASAP. It's right up your proverbial.
Quote from: Junkenstein on August 16, 2014, 06:49:29 PM
Badbeast - Lay your hands on the bloodlines run ASAP. It's right up your proverbial.
Downloading them as I type this.
Quote from: Cain on July 28, 2014, 01:41:57 PM
I predict vampires are making a comeback (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654620/).
Vampires
have to make a comeback...or else they're just corpses.
hyuck hyuck hyuck
That's why we eat sweetbreads on Christmas day. :eek:
On an only slightly related note, (I don't mind my threads wandering anyway) Since wywh finished, I've been reading Si Spurriers other Avatar online comic "Disenchanted"
http://www.disenchantedcomic.com/webcomic/1/
A worthy enough comic, with lots of potential. But in the Avatar Whitechapel forums, I just got a bollocking from Spurrier for this. (Not that offensive, surely? And relevant to the story)
(http://i.imgur.com/rpJEkcU.png)
Then followed this
(http://i.imgur.com/uxpu05x.png)
Then, a whole week after it was posted, Spurrier, (Horrible warning Si, who is admin on the site :roll: ) decided I needed to edit it, because he didn't think it was very funny.
(http://i.imgur.com/9fdbIzL.png)
I almost pushed the point and said "I didn't think your first episode of wywh very funny when you had a Crossed fucking a dying Dolphin in the blowhole" but I didn't. (It would have been a lie anyway, I thought it was hilarious) Still, a bit oversensitive for a man who writes gratuitous rapezombie comics for a living.
Nearly spoiled my whole morning, but I'm over it now. :lulz:
Also, "Gave it the benefit of the 'bad joke' doubt, just this once" Cheeky cunt.
Very Brazilian ju-jitsu counter-grappling techniques. Probably not a worthy opponent. The harpies, those what which are of the, "sinister hand", they tend to spoil even chocolate itself. For them there is no remedy. [currently indisposed to emoticon usage, please forgive it]
Well, it was pretty ragingly misogynistic. It took me a doubletake to actually register that you posted it. I'll take your word that it was a joke because I don't get the context, but if I came across that on a forum somewhere I'd likely assume the poster was a misogynistic POS who wasn't worth my time.
So, ya know. It might have been you.
Like, I seriously can't tell if you're lampooning the misogyny of the comic drawing a character as a misogynistic caricature of a "typical woman" or if you're sincerely using the "typical woman" line yourself as a descriptor.
I think "Only Lovers Left Alive" by Jarmusch had it's moments IIRC, vivifying vampires some.
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 08:18:41 AM
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
I saw some piece of meme once, it's pretty muddled in my mind, it might have been a comic, it might have been a paragraph long story, I completely forget the form, but the content was like a newscaster being all like;
"We apologize for being so premature in telling you to kill zombies, turns out, there's TOTALLY a cure... Sorry you staved your dad's head in."
Quote from: Slyph on August 28, 2014, 06:06:00 PM
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 08:18:41 AM
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
I saw some piece of meme once, it's pretty muddled in my mind, it might have been a comic, it might have been a paragraph long story, I completely forget the form, but the content was like a newscaster being all like;
"We apologize for being so premature in telling you to kill zombies, turns out, there's TOTALLY a cure... Sorry you staved your dad's head in."
Sure, it's just that the "cure" turns them into vampires.
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 08:18:41 AM
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
Right, now tell your feelings on napalm.
Quote from: Junkenstein on August 16, 2014, 06:49:29 PM
Badbeast - Lay your hands on the bloodlines run ASAP. It's right up your proverbial.
Wow yeah, that was a really compelling read, and added a much needed sense of depth and gravitas to the whole "Crossed" thing. But I wouldn't expect any less from Garth Ennis, especially as the whole franchise is his baby. Ennis is well known for his disdain for politicians, but despite this, I think he portrayed Gordon Brown with an exceptional amount of sensitivity and pathos. It would have been easy for him to show Brown as the bumbling insensitive idiot that the popular press would have us believe he is, but no. Ennis is better than that. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say he was getting soft in his old age. But he shows him in a rather complimentary light, being able to make the hard decisions, from a morally anguished point of view. And true to form, Ennis made sure Brown "got it" in the end. :lulz: A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Quote from: Slyph on August 28, 2014, 06:06:00 PM
Quote from: von on August 01, 2014, 08:18:41 AM
Quote from: LuciferX on July 31, 2014, 09:52:19 PM
I was wondering whether these tropes constitute a form brainwashing Although I consciously relate to the zombie as a metaphor, I subconsciously might be admitting the "double-tap" as a reasonable way to deal with whatever zombies represent. The metaphor leaves a kind of dehumanizing residue. Zombies are less human than vampires, so the resultant trope is stronger?
Ever heard of groups like "zombie squad"? Basically, you have groups of modern survivalist preppers who use the thinly veiled trope of the zombie to basically represent a stand-in for riotous, unarmed looters that tend to crop up in disaster scenarios.
In more extreme cases, ive even seen "zombie preppers" justify themselves by saying stuff like "zombies = niggers. Of course we dont believe in a real zombie apocalypse" (naturally, NOT on ZS's official forums, but in more ephemeral places where zombie survival gets discussed).
So yeah...it definitely allows people to dehumanise others. Maybe not as some sort of "woo evil brainwashing", but certainly in the form of it being co-opted and sold as something innocuous when it really isnt.
But yeah...all sorts of fucked up shit hides itself in the zombie "movement".
I saw some piece of meme once, it's pretty muddled in my mind, it might have been a comic, it might have been a paragraph long story, I completely forget the form, but the content was like a newscaster being all like;
"We apologize for being so premature in telling you to kill zombies, turns out, there's TOTALLY a cure... Sorry you staved your dad's head in."
I think that's been done in a few different places. There was a bit like that in the season 1 South Park episode "Pinkeye" ("DO NOT start decapitating zombies left and right! All you have to do is kill the original zombie, the one who started the whole mess. Once you kill the priginal zombie all the other zombies will turn back to normal"). It also happened in the Gravity Falls episode "Scary-Oke" (though there was only one infected zombie who could be cured in that episode, the rest were reanimated corpses), and to a lesser extent in the movie "Re-animator" where it is discovered that the zombies can be made non-violent by lobotomizing them.
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on August 27, 2014, 05:36:09 PM
Like, I seriously can't tell if you're lampooning the misogyny of the comic drawing a character as a misogynistic caricature of a "typical woman" or if you're sincerely using the "typical woman" line yourself as a descriptor.
Seconded.
BadBeast, I am trying to think the best of you, but without context that quote is very disturbing. And for context:
I tell (and laugh at) dead baby jokes.
Quote from: Reginald Ret (07/05/1983 - 06/11/2014) on November 17, 2014, 08:34:43 PM
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on August 27, 2014, 05:36:09 PM
Like, I seriously can't tell if you're lampooning the misogyny of the comic drawing a character as a misogynistic caricature of a "typical woman" or if you're sincerely using the "typical woman" line yourself as a descriptor.
Seconded.
BadBeast, I am trying to think the best of you, but without context that quote is very disturbing. And for context: I tell (and laugh at) dead baby jokes.
He didn't respond to me... maybe he won't ignore just ignore you. After all, you are a man.
Quote from: Reginald Ret (07/05/1983 - 06/11/2014) on November 17, 2014, 08:34:43 PM
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on August 27, 2014, 05:36:09 PM
Like, I seriously can't tell if you're lampooning the misogyny of the comic drawing a character as a misogynistic caricature of a "typical woman" or if you're sincerely using the "typical woman" line yourself as a descriptor.
Seconded.
BadBeast, I am trying to think the best of you, but without context that quote is very disturbing.
On reflection, taken out of it's context the original quote does seem a bit baffling. I know this, because my memory of even making it got mis-filed, which makes it pretty much impossible to dredge up the original spirit in which it was made. So in the interests of . . . Historical accuracy (needs citation) I just got back from Whitechapel, (the forum in question) and refreshed my brain's post history for there. Which involved a nostalgic refresher going back through the Avatar webcomic in question (Disenchanted) Then back through my Whitechapel history, and how I wound up in their comic threads in the first place.
I traced my association back to the time I discovered "FreakAngels" on Avatar's site. Then followed the link to Whitechapel for the discussion threads, where I picked up on the (then, ongoing) "Crossed WYWH". I like the format of having a thread for each web episode where you can offer the writers your own thoughts on their creative (Or not) process. To stop threads just going on and on and on for ever with gushy fanboi titwank, if no-one makes a post for five days the thread is capped. Anyway, during "Crossed", I made regular posts there where I kinda gently trolled Spurrier with td;lr posts, speculating on where his plots were about to take us, or how consistent / believable / credible / or true to character (or not) his plots and their people were.
Originally I wanted to correctly predict where the next few episodes were going, so I could call Spurrier out for drawing on MY ideas to keep HIS OWN career as an "A List" writer from foundering :aaa:. . . (I'm a troll, of course I wouldn't miss such a juicy bone to run with, if it was thrown down!) Then when my incredible insights and uncharacteristic generosity with my own creative process were evidently too "edgy" :roll: for him to touch with a big shitty stick, did I become bitter? No. Did I start to disparage his own (quite obviously, of a magnitude far in excess of my own) skills as a writer? Of course I didn't.
Did I begin bitterly sniping at his "unrealistic" stories? (It's a post apocalyptic nightmare World of brain-blown rape zombies ffs :eek:), or his character's sociopathic lack of empathy, his ego-centrism or the way his rare acts of altruistic or selfless generosity, were in fact, blatantly motivated by self centred narcissism? Well, yeah, I kind of did that a bit, but no more than I ever did, and only proportionally to the plot / story arc. And of course, my own trollish sense of where the boundaries might lie. (for which I make no apologies) When Spurrier wound up WYWH, he began his latest Avatar webcomic, "Disenchanted", which I followed with the same level of interest and "helpfulness".
Which brings us full circle, and to the point raised regarding my motivation or reasons for making "that"comment in the first place. Without going into a long, interminably boring and un-necessary critique on the plot dynamics of "Disenchanted" or how you had to "be there" to get it, my reason for the subjective context and the barbed sentiment I used to aggregate it, are simple. Trollish hyperbole. The satisfaction I got from Spurrier's response, was a petty and and purely personal one, and one that I wasn't expecting to have to justify, but I don't mind. Much. Spurrier is a brilliant writer in an increasingly cut-throat and fickle industry, and (as yet) his quality of artistic content remains consistently excellent. So there's no chink in his creative process that I could even detect, invent, or comment upon. For which I'm actually quite glad, because I enjoy his work immensely. But he's not such a good forum admin.
He tends to have little input in those threads, save for starting one each week, and his sporadic forays into site moderation tend to originate in some really classic Whiteknighting when one of his favoured fangirls gets even slightly ruffled because someone said something rude to someone else, or the "spirit" of the forum has been compromised because someone doesn't agree with some wanky sense of entitlement some people have about never getting offended.
Well, I don't know about you, but I think if you have a admin like that, with such a wide open vulnerability for WKing, it would be churlish, and a betrayal of trolling traditions NOT to give the fucker a bit of a poke. Not enough to actually get them to pre-emptively ban you, or force some arbitrary and petty punitive climbdown in light of his status as admin. To his credit, he didn't demand I that I remove the post, or even remove it himself . (Which is what he usually does) he asked me to "make an edit". Which I did. With no fuss. And even left the original post up. And that seemed to satisfy any forum protocol, and satisfied my own petty smug, confirming his admin abilities.
OK? Same old BadBeast, just not around as much as I used to be.
QuoteAnd for context: I tell (and laugh at) dead baby jokes.
You'd have loved our "Dead baby jokes" FB Page. I was surprised at how long it lasted. Or our short lived but hilarious "Mothers against breastfeeding" page. Funny how people will go right out of their way to hurl themselves into taking offence at the most outrageously spurious trollbait, then start foaming when they get mocked and ridiculed into making blatant death threats to the admins on a public forum, in a open page, then thinking better of it, and removing their posts. They go absolutely batshit when you re-post screencaps of what they said, that they CAN'T remove. Then they demand that you remove them immediately or "face legal action".
When you remind them that they have no legal grounds for "harassment" (or any other) lawsuit, and that no-one is forcing them to come to our pages, make complete arseholes of themselves, then demand that WE help them to pretend they never said those things at all. Or that our screencaps were taken "out of context". Of course they were. THEY removed the comment from the context! Then the inbox fills up with "I'm going to shoot you in the face" PMs. :lulz: People troll themselves on facebook. Then call you a troll, because of their own lack of self control. I nearly started a thread here, to post some of the more hilariously OTT responses we've had from people with a seemingly bottomless capacity for cunting themselves, but it doesn't look like anyone's giving FB the trolling it deserves. The Disco groups on FB have their moments of sublime idiocy, but they boot all their best trolls from the groups. Eventually.
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on August 27, 2014, 05:36:09 PM
He didn't respond to me... maybe he won't ignore just ignore you. After all, you are a man.
Nigel, my lack of response to your first post wasn't on the grounds that you're a woman. I just didn't come here to discuss misogyny, and your post obviously had an agenda suggesting that I might need to address it as a subject. I don't. But don't take it personally. If I ever do feel a need to examine any inherent misogynist issues I may find myself struggling with, I promise I'll come to one of your threads on woman stuff, and thrash it out, ok?
That was a lot of tl;dr some-other-forum's-boring-drama to wade through just to have a legitimate question bizarrely dismissed.
'Cause I post so many "woman stuff" threads. :?
I think dude's in a world all his own, at this point.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 07:45:04 PM
That was a lot of tl;dr some-other-forum's-boring-drama to wade through just to have a legitimate question bizarrely dismissed.
Sorry, did you ask me a question? I must have missed that.
The vamps have drained me of all concern for the zombies dancing in my side-view mirrors, however much more closer they are said to be, rarher than appear therein. I can't still cross my eyes enough, at this distance, to really make them pop.
Quote from: BadBeast on December 28, 2014, 08:22:56 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 07:45:04 PM
That was a lot of tl;dr some-other-forum's-boring-drama to wade through just to have a legitimate question bizarrely dismissed.
Sorry, did you ask me a question? I must have missed that.
Probably not, I typically only try to communicate with sapient beings.
That's cool, sapient, been a really long time since I heard that one. First thing I thought of was /sentient/, now I'm just basking in the difference between them. Made my day.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 01, 2015, 10:53:51 PM
Quote from: BadBeast on December 28, 2014, 08:22:56 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 28, 2014, 07:45:04 PM
That was a lot of tl;dr some-other-forum's-boring-drama to wade through just to have a legitimate question bizarrely dismissed.
Sorry, did you ask me a question? I must have missed that.
Probably not, I typically only try to communicate with sapient beings.
So in light of your oversight to actually ask the question in question, my dismissal of it wasn't really that bizarre at all, was it? In fact, it wasn't even a dismissal. If I added too much detail for you to comfortably wade through, it was only to help you try and grasp the setting and context that for the sake of brevity, I originally omitted to expand upon. Typically, I try to communicate in a way that doesn't provoke the reader into an unexpectedly taxing level of engagement. Mostly because I know people find it tedious to wade through the disproportionate levels of bombastic pedantry I sometimes enjoy inflicting on people whom I feel might appreciate the effort.
I am after all, a creature of indolent and capricious impulse, and I enjoy indulging myself in ways that might perhaps be seen as less than endearing to those whose sense of their own sapience seems (as I'm also aware, my own is) a little bit precocious. Anyway, to offer a less than legitimate answer the question you didn't ask, I'm more of a misanthrope, with perhaps a touch of (not entirely unwarranted) narcissism. I'm certainly not a misogynist. My sense of humour however, often allows me to laugh at the most appallingly inappropriate and offensively taboo subject material. But . . well, you'd have had to have been there, so I won't garnish you with any examples. But if did, they'd be funny as fuck.