Page 215
Well, Geist was strangely (suspiciously) easy to take out. Too bad these animated corpses are proving to be more of a challenge for Kate. I don’t suppose this will do much to help her get over that old lab accident either…
I — along with a bunch of other cool guests from comics and cosplay — am going to be at Rocky Mountain Con in Denver this weekend (the 25th and 26th). If you’re going to be in the Denver area, come join us!
Here, we see two ladies with eyes that have seen far, far too much. One is quite obvious, the other obviously implied.
Apologies to Agnes, but her eyes say her mind is current full of “what the actual hell” at the moment. That is the look of a woman who has seen THINGS, and they went “donk!” (or possibly ‘zip,’ when it moved)
Very important lesson about zombies, they don’t care about being on fire, electrocuted, dipped in acid or drowned in a lake. They will still keep coming at ya, as long as their brains are in one piece!
That is, unless we speak of the sort of zombies that will continue to “live” even when cut into little pieces, and cannot be ever truly dead unless they are incinerated into ash and scattered out into the air.
At least the semi-good news here is that (hopefully) the zombie bites/scratches are not infected with the zombie “virus”!
I’d like to mention that Shawn and I don’t consider them to be “zombies” in the strictest, Romero-style, “Walking Dead” type flesh-eaters. We think of them as animated corpses more than anything else. In other words, no virus, no destroy-the-brain tactics, etc. etc. Damage the corpse enough, it should stop trying to kill you.
You’ll notice on the previous page, one formerly lifeless German soldier choking a living American counterpart, rather than biting or otherwise attempting to get at some of that sweet, sweet gray matter. It’s a fine enough distinction, to be sure, and not one we’ve really gotten too deeply into. But it’s a distinction nonetheless.
Will just chip in another zombie type that I hope THESE guys are not. Those who are familiar with the Video Game Dwarf Fortress would had had the chance to meet the undead, zombies usually. What made them stand out, almost to an extreme, is that there was no simple way of killing them. The most skilled Dwarven warrior could had hacked a zombie into little bits, even individual fingers… However, the Necromancer’s magic would permit him to animate all those individual bits of the once-zombie!
Though I never had the displeasure of seeing that myself I read stories of Dwarven Fortresses being overrun by crawling fingers, rolling heads and other macabre animated limbs! I hope that whatever magic animated these particular zombies is not that extensive, or intense.
We’ll need some WWII-era lava pump traps, stat!
Doctor Bonechill’s Skeleton Marionettes! For your ridiculously inefficient way to kill people needs!
Reminds me of the zombies from Duke Nukem. Poison gas and other elemental effects are useless against them.
But fire was effective.
The undead might not care about being on fire but they still turns to ash.
Man, the amount of voltage you would need to generate in order to rupture and hew through someone’s mid-section… The Electrical Weapon System used, is truly a weapon of terror… against living enemies of course. I cringe at how those German soldiers died during the Specialist’s assault on the base. If I knew I was going to buy the plot that way, I’d honestly just shoot myself.
On that note, like how Walter’s paranoid that Gheist got into Agnes: that low-key reaching for his sidearm though. Psychic attack probably just caused Gheist to simply retreat unfortunately. A death scene would take up at least half a page no? 😉
Yeah, the most basic conventions of drama dictate that we devote a certain amount of page space to a major character’s death, so I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say that the last page probably wasn’t the last we’ll see of Giest!
To be fair to Kate, the re-animated dead weren’t as much a part of popular culture then as they are now. Today, most 8-year-old kids can quote you chapter and verse on zombies, their origins, feeding habits, weaknesses, and strengths.
I can’t stop looking at Agnes’s shell-shocked crazy eyes.
Hah! I actually drew full-on eyes instead of just the cartoony style I usually employ (see Ox on page 211 for a recent example). It can be a little hard to depict shock or fear without using that wide-open, all the whites showing kinda look.
Yeah, I can understand the dilemma. I think the saucer-eyed look works fine. It gives poor Agnes a disturbed and disturbing expression, which I gather is pretty much what you were going for!
Be hilarious if one of the animated still had use of their voice, and knowledge of what happened: ‘That’s UNdead missy, and don’t you forget it!’
Yea, see those undead things, lets hit them with lightning. That totally won’t empower the Frankenstein-esque monsters here.
I’m out of lightning! Time to go!
I do wonder about that small frame in which Walter hovers over his gun while inquiring on Agnes’s status… Seems he, too, may be getting a little shell-shocked… Having experienced what Geist could do, he is now instilled with a bit of paranoia over the identity of his friends that will be imposed, hereafter, on every… single… interaction… Perhaps he will be the only one to detect it if and when Geist DOES hitch a ride in an ally (because he will be paying so much attention to their mannerisms. It’s not a persecution complex if they actually are out to get you!), or perhaps he will start imagining Geist around every corner, and slowly withdraw… The Baron doesn’t need to defeat them bodily if he can slowly drive them mad.
Yep, being a passenger in your own body would certainly have a lasting effect. Interesting observations about how a visit from Geist would lead to paranoia!
Wow! Agnes’s eyes, Walter’s hand hovering over his sidearm, burning zombies … and exploding zombies, too (yikes!). I love panel 7, the lighting on Kate, her fingers protruding from the panel. But she’s in big trouble. And it looks like Agnes is, too. Who’s gone? Geist? Luke? Somebody else? I wanna know, and you guys are gonna make me wait a few more weeks to find out, aren’t you?
Seriously, I love this comic!
Thanks, Jane! We love your enthusiasm!
I didn’t intend Agnes’ line to be ambiguous, so I won’t leave you in suspense about that. In the last page, she had reacted instinctively to Geist’s attack and when he came into contact with her shield, he just disappeared in a puff of spectral smoke, leaving Agnes confused and afraid. She can’t see Geist, or hear his thoughts, but she doesn’t understand what happened to him.
Whelp, I severely doubt (as does, I suspect, anybody with an IQ larger than 2) that Geist is gone. One must take into account that Agnes has never encountered anyone like him, so she doesn’t really know what he’s capable of(‘Course the Nazis probably don’t, either). Also, the fact that no one knows that she’s a telepath looks like it’s gonna REALLY bite her in the ass. I wonder if someone’s gonna start putting the pieces of her odd behavior together and realize what it means (When THAT reveal happens you KNOW Henry’s gonna take it the worst simply because he’s keeping secrets and because he’s an asshole).
Man, if she survives the war she’s gonna wind up in an asylum.
And from the looks of things, Kate might join her…
character pages?
Augh! I really did have the best of intentions when I promised to get them finished in October. Between my day job and all the work of getting a page out every week, I find that I’m always short on either time or energy. But I will get them done in the near future.
hug