Regular followers of this blog know that Space Squid had the issue seven release party last Saturday at Frugal Media book store. The Frugal Media folks were kind enough to provide us with an awesome spread of cakes and beer.
Including a zombie cake!
The primary event of this Space Squid party was a zombie simulation using an actual head.
You know how in zombie movies people are smashing zombie heads left and right with anything they have at hand? I figured these movies were nothing but a lot of empty conjecture, so I created a simulation in order to bring zombie movies back to reality.
Here’s the results of the simulation experiment:
Conclusion Number One: Most people suck at braining things.
This is one area where the zombie movies are right on the mark. If given the opportunity to smack a head with a weapon, most people have terrible form, pathetic force, and wildly inaccurate aim.
I had intended to make a zombie armature that simulated the wobbly-headed, lurching gait of a zombie, but due to various time and safety constraints, I just made a perfectly immobile platform with a pig head strapped to the top. (It was calibrated to 5’6.5", the average height of an American adult).
Even with the head just sitting there, most people took three or more swings to land a solid brain blow.
The good news is that people learn quickly. Bad news is that zombies never forgive mistakes.
Conclusion Number Two: Samurai swords suck.
Two people showed up for the explicit purpose of putting their katanas to the test.
In the background you can see Austin writer and editor of the story blog "Infinite Windows," D. D. Tannenbaum, with the ninja sword handed down to him by his father.
In the foreground is Austin writer Lawrence Person, who is demonstrating that his samurai sword is so cheap that it actually has a plastic dragon on the handle.
In this photo we can clearly see Person miss the brain by a good half foot (demonstrating conclusion number one), managing to only slice a notch in the pig ear.
Here we see that the sword fares rather poorly after a better aimed hit. It has been bent noticeably straighter.
Sadly, D.D.’s significantly higher-quality sword experienced the exact same fate.
You know how in anime the katana cuts through entire houses and boulders with a neat diagonal line and then the top half slowly slides off? Total freaking fantasy.
Conclusion Number Three: The right tools for the job are tools.
Demonstrating the can-do spirit and tactical flexibility for which he is duly admired, Person changes from the crappy samurai sword and goes to the axe.
Which does a hell of a lot more damage.
You can actually see the brain:
Here is a long-time friend of Space Squid using a sledge hammer:
This was the last weapon in the simulation, and it made a meaty mess of our scientifically calibrated test head.
Although in support of conclusion number one, he reports that he missed with the first swing and nearly pulped his own foot.
The exception to this rule is the spade/shovel, which you would think would be really effective, but was actually not heavy enough, hard enough, nor sharp enough to do any damage at all.
Conclusion Number Four: Try out your home weapons first.
In this picture we see rising Austin writer and the author of Gordath Wood, Patrice Sarath (who incidentally has already posted to her own blog about the simulation). Her husband kindly put together a number of weapons explicitly for this simulation (although he promised us a spring-powered head-crusher which we have yet to see). The buzz-saw bladed maul looks like the wild post-apocalyptic weapon of my dreams.
But was largely ineffective.
The other weapon that Sarath brought, the nine-inch-nails board, fared much better. Here we see Austin writer, and contributor to the anthology Tales From the Secret City, Patrick Sullivan, carefully measuring his distance from the simulated head.
I don’t want to talk any trash, but I feel that for the record I need to point out that despite carefully setting up his swing, and despite being an experienced martial artist, Sullivan still missed the zombie head on his first try.
Second swing went better.
Although for the record I would like to point out that he did miss the pig’s brain. But only because it was significantly smaller than a human zombie brain. Just wanted to put that out there for the record.
Overall Summary:
This simulation throws into doubt America’s level of zombie preparedness. Considering how poorly we all fared against this completely stationary zombie, I fear that fast zombies would take us all out before we could fashion the next level of post-apocalyptic anti-zombie weapon.
And then once we finished with the zombie simulation, we all went inside and drew pictures.
Which wasn’t anywhere near as fun.
