Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse

Despite the lopsided drawing and grey shading around the eyes, these are not the zombies, these are the protagonists of a government-issued graphic novel designed to teach general disaster awareness.

After watching a horror movie and briefly visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the protagonist has a nightmare featuring six pages set at the CDC(&P) headquarters, during which carefully multicultural supporting characters in lab coats and uniforms engage exchange detailed technical information — the kind of detail one does not usually find in a random citizen’s horror-movie-sparked nightmare. (I guess he learned a heck of a lot from his late-night visit to the website… Though according to the “it-was-all-a-dream” chronology of the story, he seems to have fallen asleep before he even visited the CDC website. But I digress…)

Putting this much detail into characters who only appear in this “meanwhile…” sequence is an odd aesthetic choice, as we see from this luxurious half-page panel, which idealizes an office environment featuring paper printouts and corded telephones.:

By contrast, the climactic assault by zombie hordes happens mostly in panels cramped with narration boxes:

Okay, I really didn’t expect much, but I’ve read plenty of “Spider-Man Tells You Not to Smoke” comics that do a much better job mixing public service and entertainment.

Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.