I got linked to a relatively new Zombie/Sci-Fi webcomic recently by BuyZombie, ‘The Horror of Colony 6′:

First off let me say that after zombies my favorite thing to watch is science fiction horror. In fact my love of scifi/horror may surpass that of the undead but there is so little of it that I tend to put it in the background. That being said I happily get to show off this ‘trailer’ for a newer zombie web comic entitled The Horror of Colony 6 and while it’s not far enough to get a true feel on how it’s going to go it is far enough into the plot to catch your interest. Well if you are into sci-fi horror at least.

Yes, that’s right, it’s a comic with a trailer:

Intrigued, ok, ‘concerned’ might be more like it, I went to the site to read the available archives, which start here.

The story in a nutshell: humanity has spread out into space, coming into contact with several other intelligent species along the way. The name of the game seems to be reckless colonization, like in the ‘Alien’ universe, although no particular explanation is given for what the rush is here. Profit, probably. Whose isn’t clear.

Naturally this leads them to place a colony where they haven’t properly scouted the local flora and fauna, which leads, unlike in ‘Aliens’, to Zombies rather than xenomorphic acid-blooded bugs.

The ‘Zombies’ in ‘The Horror of Colony 6′ are interesting from a purely academic perspective. Intelligent, ravenous for flesh, not technically Undead but rather infected with some sort of alien fungus. A fungus which drives them to… eat people. But only a little, leaving enough for that newly infected person to get up and ‘eat’ others. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So it’s a bit like ‘Aliens’ crossed with ‘Marvel Zombies’, really.

(Anti-Zombie media often suffers from these logical flaws, though ‘good story’ is being generous on the whole)

Just as an aside, why is it that security systems in sci-fi horror are often so laughable? In ’28 Weeks Later’, as in Colony 6, an automated quarantine procedure has to have been designed by an utter moron. In ’28 Weeks Later’, when trying to contain a super-contagious ailment (from their perspective), they use RFID cards as all-in-one security access. No keypads, no passwords, nothing. Just have to.. walk close enough to a scanner… with a card on you.

Needless to say, one of the ‘Infected’ doesn’t drop his card and thus it all falls apart.

In Colony 6, you have a security quarantine that can be overriden by, and I’m not making this up, a botanist or some such. A quarantine that only keeps people from re-entering the colony, not exiting. Needless to say, a low level person exits, then overrides the quarantine and re-enters.

Sigh.

Back to the important topic though: Zombie Rights. The Zombies here are treated, I have to say, quite shabbily. Sure they’re very hungry for flesh, but I mean, that’s no reason to abuse and segregate them. It’s just rude. On the other hand, as yet, they are only trying to ‘cure’ the Zombies, not kill them. That, sadly, is ahead of the curve for the usual treatment of the Differently Animated in fiction.

Thus the ZRC has decided to award ‘The Horror of Colony 6′ an Anti-Zombie rating as of this date. Things could obviously change as it is an ongoing series. We can’t recommend following it to find out about said changes, naturally.

Tags: Comics, ZRC Reviews

This entry was posted by John Sears on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 at 12:23 am and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.