I Quite Fancy Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse, Actually...

The Walking Dead is back on TV, though the latest season might be better called 'The Treading Water'. Still, it got me thinking about why I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much. And the truth is, no matter how grim they try and make it appear, I still quite fancy being a survivor of some kind of global catastrophe.

Now, obviously, it all depends on the kind of apocalypse. Nuclear Armageddon is out, because even if you did survive... chances are you'd be living on borrowed time while hideous cancers grew inside you like sea monkeys. Plus you'd constantly be worrying about drinking irradiated water or eating a mutated turnip. Or you might end up in The Road, the most depressing of all post-apocalyptic futures, fending off cannibals and wishing you were dead because everything is so relentlessly grey.

Societal breakdown is a no-no too. Frankly, society's broken down enough for me as it is. Living in Mad Max world with marauding biker gangs raping and pillaging everything in sight would be too much like this summer's yoof riots. I parked in Manchester a couple of weekends ago and returned to find some mindless savage had snapped the windscreen wiper off my car for no reason at all. If the yobs ever do take over, I'm going to live on a mountain.

And you can forget your killer viruses too because even if I was immune, I'm such a hypochondriac I wouldn't be able to leave the house for fear of a wayward sneeze. I currently have a terrible case of Man Flu I'm certain I caught when I went to see Contagion. It was inevitable really.

The best kind of apocalypse would be one like in the movie Night Of The Comet where pretty much the entire human race just conveniently disappears (and there's no stinking corpses to clean up) and you could spend all your time dancing to Cyndi Lauper songs at the mall. But as the chances of that happening appear slim, I'll settle instead for a nice zombie apocalypse. As long as it's one where the zombies can only shuffle about slowly and are rubbish at running. Not the speed-freak 28 Days Later zombies. Those guys are no fun at all.

Top Ten Reasons I Wouldn't Mind Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse...

1. Even though society's fallen apart, there's still loads to eat. Zombies aren't interested in human food (only brains) so you'd never go hungry again. Well, until all the cans in the supermarket were past their sell-by dates. You'd have to start growing stuff then.

2. You get to shoot people you don't like (i.e. zombies) in the head.

3. Once you find yourself a nice generator you can sit back, watch some DVDs, play some computer games... read books to your heart's content. Just don't break your reading glasses like Burgess Meredith did in that famous Twilight Zone episode.

4. You get to shoot people in the head. Don't look at me like that, you know you want to.

5. You don't have to go to work any more.

6. You get to shoot your boss in the head. Because, let's face it, he or she is already part zombie. It's for their own good.

7. No more wasting your time on the internet. The internet has closed down. Maybe you can go out for a nice walk instead. You know, like we used to, before the 90s.

8. Did I mention shooting people in the head?

9. You can go wherever you want. Into all those behind-the-scenes parts of buildings you never see unless you work there. Or into other people's houses. Have a nice snoop about. Rummage to your heart's content. As long as you don't bump into any remaining zombie residents, you'll be fine. Go on, admit it, you fancy having a good nose.

10. Shooting. People. In. The. Head.

Now, give me one good reason we shouldn't have a zombie apocalypse tomorrow...?

Thoughtballoons - The 6 Month Anniversary

Hard to believe, but we've been at this Thoughtballoons malarkey six whole months now. Every week we choose a new comics character and write a one page script about them. There are six regular writers so that usually equates to a new script every day. It's been a blast - and we're just getting started.

To celebrate our first half-anniversary, we decided on a little interview meme between the writers. My answers are below... pop over to the site to read what the other guys thought.



Who is your favourite comic character?

Peter Parker, the spectacular, amazing, sensational Spider-Man. I explained why when I chose him as my first Thoughtballoons pick. The only problem is I don't get to pick him again...

What is your favourite comic?

That would have to be Amazing Spider-Man too. I've been a Marvel junkie for over 30 years and have a lot of time for all the classic Lee / Kirby / Ditko creations, when handled correctly. I've dallied with DC - favourites being the Giffen DeMatteis JLI and Grant Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol - though the only DC character I've stuck with through thick and thin is John Constantine, Hellblazer. Favourite comics outside the mainstream have included Cerebus (before Dave Sim went bonkers), Phonogram and anything by Adrian Tomine.

Hey, I'd have just give you a 3 word answer, but that's not everybody else is doing, now is it?

Who is your favourite comic writer?

Grant Morrison, JM DeMatteis, Peter David, Brian K Vaughan, Mark Waid, Ed Brubaker, Roger Stern, Warren Ellis and Peter Milligan have all distinguished themselves in my eyes, among many others. Not forgetting Stan Lee, of course, without whom this world would be a much poorer place.

Who has been the most fun to write so far in 26 weeks of thoughtballoons?

The obvious answer is Spidey, but the pressure was on for that and I ended up feeling a little self-conscious. My other two choices were John Constantine and Ben Grimm, and I had loads of fun with both... though having gotten my Holy Trinity of Comics Characters out of the way, I'm having a devil of a time deciding who to pick next time it's my shout.

Other than those, the most fun were Machine Man, Gamora and Ash. Although I had got Gamora completely mixed up with Nebula. I'm not sure anybody noticed.

Which character do you most dread having to write?

Loath though I am to fall in line with my peers, I have a real problem with Green Lantern too. I'm not good with intergalactic characters and the whole "green ring that can do absolutely anything unless there's yellow involved" has always seemed like one of those dopey concepts that would have been best left in the Silver Age. Plus, despite reading GL for a number of years in my younger days, I never liked Hal Jordan. I could just about squeeze out a Guy Gardener script... or G'Nort. G'Nort would be fun. I bet he's dead now, isn't he?

Which non-comics character would you most like to write?

My favourite fictional character who's not been bitten by a radioactive spider is Detective Andy Sipowicz from NYPD Blue. A complex, multi-layered, extremely tragic hero with any number of achilles heels... who just happens to hate most of the people he meets on a daily basis... but still tries to do well by them. And if Andy was taken, I'd choose Gregory House MD for many of the same reasons.

Which script do you think has been your best so far?

I was pleased to fit an entire locked room mystery into one (admittedly crowded) page in my Blonde Phantom story. Max Allan Collins would have done it better though. And I had loads of fun pitching Mr. Mxyzptlk against Zatanna. But the one I'm most proud of so far would be my John Constantine yarn. It was hard as hell capturing everything I love about that bastard mage on just one page, but I gave it my best shot.

Worst by far was my Daredevil offering, for which I won't even provide a link. Such a great character, and I threw away my chance on a dumb fat bloke gag. What an idiot!

Which script in total do you think has been the best on the site?

Let's see...

Ryan's Mephisto page sticks in my mind as a really clever concept and I'd have loved to see where his Daredevil story went next.

Ben's Spider-Man script really came from the heart and his Rick Grimes tale was a simple idea, perfectly executed.

Matt's John Constantine page was ripe for development and I only just discovered his Thing story (somehow I missed it first time round) and it's bloody marvellous.

Max consistently wins the prize for most inspired story titles. Noir As Heck and Boys Are Stupid, Throw Grappling Hooks At Them are just two that somehow live up to their seemingly impossible promise.

Simon's John Constantine script played like the teaser for a TV series I'd have sold my soul to watch and he writes a mean Damien Wayne too (albeit in Renee Montoya's script).

Brandon hasn't been around half as much as I'd have liked given the quality of his Mephisto page (among others).

And finally, Danial dazzled us so much from the comment box trenches he was an obvious call when a frontline vacancy came up. I look forward to reading more from him, especially if they're as strong as his Casanova Quinn offering.

What - I was only supposed to pick one? Says who?

OK, is that everything? Thank you. Now go read my Rick Grimes (from The Walking Dead) script. You know you want to...