"It's an example; we swear.": Technically Living Zombie

Image shows some zombies that look dead to me. Caption says "no, really, they're alive."

Surely we can do better.

edited 4th Dec '11 3:57:03 AM by INUH

Really, I was going to say they just look like normal, pissed off guys with blood on their shirts. They aren't even doing the Zombie Gait.

I agree we can do better. But I question the possibility of any character looking both "zombie" and "alive" at the same time, given that the expected zombie look is a walking corpse. Maybe an alive-looking guy doing an obvious Zombie Gait?

Girl zombie1 ◊ and girl zombie 2◊ from REC.

Personal fave, Zombie couple◊ from I Am Legend. We can get a good screencap from this vid.

Bump...I can't look at right now, but does anyone like/dislike those suggestions?

^^First two don't look alive, last one doesn't look like zombies.

I'm not sure this one's pictureable, short of some expositioney thing.

edited 13th Dec '11 11:16:44 AM by INUH

The pics from REC look like they're already dead, and the I Am Legend ones...they don't really strike me of zombies at all. I'd have to agree that this might not be picturable.

This is definitely an exposition thing. The only other way I could think of would be to have the zombies bleeding or something.

I dunno...to me, the REC girls just look diseased or possessed, they don't have the skin color changes and signs of decay that would make them look truly dead.

Okay, here's another try from The Crazies: dragging a cop◊, infected eyes◊, pitchfork stabbing◊.

How about one of these two pics from Garth Ennis's and Jacen Burrows's Crossed? They display typical zombie behaviour, but the zombies don't look like rotting corpses.

edited 15th Dec '11 12:44:59 AM by Tuomas

The first would be right out for gore...the second could possibly work.

I'm not convinced by the crossed-faced humans. The rest of their bodies don't really show much blood and decay that shows that they're something more than a human with their faces branded.

Well, the problem with this trope is that if the bodies show much decay, the zombies don't look "technically alive". So we'd have to have either use an image with alive-looking people acting like zombies, or an image with decayed zombies where it's explicitly stated they are alive (a comic panel with dialogue, for example). Crossed might possibly have an example the latter too, I can check it out if I can find any such panel.

edited 15th Dec '11 4:47:45 AM by Tuomas

I wonder if I can find any shots of the the special infected from Dead Island... The Butchers, Rams, and Suiciders show sufficient signs of this trope in the game, as do the Runners.

Have to side with the "non picturable" argument. Looking like a typical zombie and looking like a "living" being are mutually exclusive here.

Clock is set.

I rather like the firt picture of the girl from REC; it does look as though something is wrong with her, from both her expression and skin, but her skin doesn't look rotted and her eyes look clear, leaving her looking nevertheless alive. I do, however, think that a shot of her doing something zombie-ish might help, but wasn't fond of the second picture of her.

Clock's up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken based on this thread.