Geeky Creative Help Wanted (Zombies!)

[WVUFAN]

Ok, I'm a geek. Big ol' geeky geek. Let's get that outta the way right off the bat.

Having said that, I regularly participate in a comic book writers workshop, and they give some challenges out for practice purposes -- to challenge the creative minds of the people in the group. One of the more recent challenges in this group (we meet once a month at the local college here -- it's a fairly informal thing), it to create a comic book script, 22 pages after drawn, called "Zombie Apocalypse". I'd like to get some input on how to take on this one, and maybe challenge some of you more creative types to participate. As all of these challenges have, there's conditions, but first the backstory:

"Zombie Apocalypse" was widely considered one of the bloodiest, most vicious sick commercial movies made. A group of castaways are stranded on an island, which also happened to be infested with a horde of zombies, and the story basically is how pretty much everyone dies because they can't escape the island.

Recently, a producer bought the rights to this film, but he's a Christian man (again, none of this actually happened, it's the basis for the challenge)
,and he has hired us to create a comic that is the sequel of the movie. Because he's a Christian, he wants "Zombie Apocalypse" to appeal and be read by everyone, especially kids, so he has set the following standards for the comic book:

1. No blood is to be shown on any panel.
2. No "deadly" violence; ie you cannot show on a panel someone being killed.
3. No profanity of any kind.
4. It must follow in some manner the original story -- this is supposed to be a sequel.
5. You cannot show a undead in any panel. They can be in shadows, but no full "zombiefied" person or animal can be shown unshadowed on camera.

I'll be honest -- I'm completely lost here. How on earth can you make a zombie story with no violence, especially given the original movie is "supposed to be the bloodiest film"?

Ideas? Anyone want to give this a shot?

[Peregrine]

Sounds like a way to make a zombie movie boring as hell.

[sachmo71]

"The power of christ compels you"

Clerics + Rebuke undead = no death of any kind

[Autumn]

I think this could be done, it would be a more classic suspense than the zombie genre. Something along the lines of Cthulhu, where the unseen horrors are lurking unseen. If you don't have restrictions on dialogue then you can relay the horrors through the characters' reactions and descriptions. Shadowy figures can be more horrible than actually seeing the zombie, since you can't quite tell what it looks like.

Plotwise, perhaps one of the zombies escapes the island and slowly infests a normal town.

[SteveMax58]

I was thinking something similar to Autmun's suggestion. Instead of the graphic displays of gore...you just show the reaction, and then immediately cut to the next scene(i.e. dont actually spell out the aftermath of the zombie bite, or attack).

You could maybe start the story out with a commercial fishing boat which mistakenly scoops up a zombie close to the island...again, dont spell this out, just show the large nets being released into the water & the "lone fisherman" who gets relegated to cleaning the fish, or packing them, or whatever it is you want him to do. Gradually everybody gets taken over one by one until the whole boat is "zombie-fied". Maybe you'll want to not spell out every fisherman's demise (i.e. adding to the suspense).

You can either have this boat almost make it back to mainland, or make it back by crashing into the dock...where police and/or whatever authorities come out to investigate. Maybe it's a Barney Fife policeman who is the first to go.

Not sure how to continue into a literal "apocalypse"-type scenario without "any" blood, gore, or death...but perhaps you can show a large shadowy mass of people(i.e. zombies) infiltrating the small town & overwhelming the limited amount of people/resources the town might have.

From their it should probably branch into a holdup in a basement, cellar, meat locker...or maybe a church? Maybe, if the premise is a Christian-friendly targeted audience, you can bestow some form of special ability or insight into priests/nuns in which they begin reading Revelations & finding answers coded in the Bible to deal with these creatures. You can add exerpts & twist them to fit your story. Or maybe that just went to left field ;-)

That's all I have for a non-gorefest(but earthday friendly) zombie story. But I am a zombie movie fan...so I'll be interested to see how it turns out for you. Hope maybe something in there sparks an idea.

[Izulde]

With the taboo on violence, you really need to emphasize the psychological horror of this. To that end, I think you'd be best served having a hero/heroine pairing who are the ones to eventually combat the zombie menace... first the obliviousness, then the awareness that something isn't quite right, then the growing realization of what's going on, etc.

Piggybacking off of Steve's idea, you could start with the fishing boat scene and have the lone fisherman suddenly disappear and then the next scene the town's talking about it and the pair get introduced etc.

[Kodos]

Have you considered incorporating a Zombie Jesus?

[JediKooter]

Dress the zombies up like alter boys, but, you can't show them as zombies, so, they would have to wear masks like the mutants did in Planet of the Apes.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

I was thinking something similar to Autmun's suggestion. Instead of the graphic displays of gore...you just show the reaction, and then immediately cut to the next scene(i.e. dont actually spell out the aftermath of the zombie bite, or attack).

You could maybe start the story out with a commercial fishing boat which mistakenly scoops up a zombie close to the island...again, dont spell this out, just show the large nets being released into the water & the "lone fisherman" who gets relegated to cleaning the fish, or packing them, or whatever it is you want him to do. Gradually everybody gets taken over one by one until the whole boat is "zombie-fied". Maybe you'll want to not spell out every fisherman's demise (i.e. adding to the suspense).

You can either have this boat almost make it back to mainland, or make it back by crashing into the dock...where police and/or whatever authorities come out to investigate. Maybe it's a Barney Fife policeman who is the first to go.

Not sure how to continue into a literal "apocalypse"-type scenario without "any" blood, gore, or death...but perhaps you can show a large shadowy mass of people(i.e. zombies) infiltrating the small town & overwhelming the limited amount of people/resources the town might have.

From their it should probably branch into a holdup in a basement, cellar, meat locker...or maybe a church? Maybe, if the premise is a Christian-friendly targeted audience, you can bestow some form of special ability or insight into priests/nuns in which they begin reading Revelations & finding answers coded in the Bible to deal with these creatures. You can add exerpts & twist them to fit your story. Or maybe that just went to left field ;-)

That's all I have for a non-gorefest(but earthday friendly) zombie story. But I am a zombie movie fan...so I'll be interested to see how it turns out for you. Hope maybe something in there sparks an idea.

I like a lot of these ideas. I think the boat-to-the-main-land idea works well, but you want to make the focus a small group of characters.

Given the whole Christian thing, I think having a group of "survivors" holed up in a church would be a nice touch. It could be a small fishing town on the coast or something.

In fact, what I'd do, is start the comic book in media res. When the comic starts there is a group of people already in the church. The zombies are already surrounding the church, their moans can be heard from outside.

You have part of the story told in "flashbacks", the arrival of the boat, perhaps one of the fishermen was bitten, he was infected, and you take it from there. The other part of the comic is the people holed up in the church.

I think this should solve your problem. Perhaps have the narrator be a kid, a teenager or something, and he knows what happened, but didn't see it actually occur, that gets around your no blood/violence thing. The zombies will still be menacing, their moans can be heard, they've surrounded the church, they can be in the shadows, or behind a door, or what not in the "flashbacks".

Those are my not so well organized thoughts.

[Neon_Chaos]

How about having Adam West Batman style scenes when the Zombies arrive / are killed.

MUNCH!

BRAIN-FODDER!

BLAM!

KA-POW!

WHAM!

Ok, that's just stupid.

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Given the whole Christian thing, I think having a group of "survivors" holed up in a church would be a nice touch. It could be a small fishing town on the coast or something.

That reminds me of the remake of The Fog. But, yes, a church as a sanctuary from the zombies is a good idea due to the limitations of the story -- as long as the zombies cannot actually gain entrance.

Having the virus spread is a good idea, too. The suspense of what could happen to the world can be a whole lot scarier than actually seeing it happen. Sounds like fun!

[Karlifornia]

steveMax58 did a pretty good job....


I guess if I have anything to add....

Zombification could happen in a slightly different way. A fantastic twist in any zombie movie is having what you thought was a main character turn zombie in a "smack-you-in-the-face" kind of way. You could have one panel where the supposed main character is talking to a girl or young person he's trying to protect, and then you have a panel where the "main character" observes himself changing.....maybe his brain is the last thing to change to zombie status...he looks at his hands, and they have turned completely white.. not caucasian pink, but white-white...and he says something to the girl or young person like, "I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it's too late for you now". And then the next panel shows the girl or young person just crying in a daze....knowing their death is coming quickly....

This is just a small part...If you want more ideas, let me know....I'm full of this bullshit.