Webcomic / Dead Winter

Our protagonists.^{From left to right:}Monday, Lizzie, Alice and Lou.

Created by Allison Shabet, Dead Winter is a (mostly lighthearted) long running^note  Been around since 2007 webcomic chronicling the Zombie Apocalypse starting from two points of view: Lizzie, an English major college student working as a waitress, and badass hitman Black Monday Blues.

Monday becomes involved in a vendetta against his former employer, while Lizzie simply tries to survive; eventually the two story arcs merge. Other members of the main cast include the optimistic medic Alice and Lou the fat Italian plumber. The comic has quite a bit of a rogues gallery; from the obvious zombies (although not called that), Lizzie's Ax-Crazy jerkass of a former employer Frank, a gang compromised of yellow poncho wearing survivors more interested in raiding, the law enforcement and even the Army alongside a few others. Secondary plots (mostly in the chapter epilogues) include Lizzie's fiance Trevor, her cat Cuddles, other survivor groups/crews trying to do their best to live and the mercenaries/assassins set loose by Monday's former employer and other bored rich men.

You can find and read the comic on it's website here. The series can get pretty NSFW (obviously because of all the blood and gore) but the comic includes some nudity, especially in the early parts. The comic also has a twitter account and a tumblr blog, both post Dead Winter mini-comics (which according to Word of God, may be canon to the series itself). You can now check them out in the comic's archive page as well.

A videogame about the Webcomic is also under development. You can follow it's dev cycle through the aforementioned twitter account, or you can join the author's Discord server: Lucky Raven Games.

Not to be confused with the Dead of Winter tabletop game, which coincidentally enough is also set in a Zombie Apocalypse. Nor should it also be confused with Dead Winter Dead.

Has a Character Sheet, that's still under construction.

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This Webcomic provides examples of:

• Acquired Poison Immunity: Violet Blues poisons her would-be assassins while drinking the same tea. She even tells them what she's doing.
  Violet: Trying times, those were. Such poison in your own blood, it's unthinkable!
  Violet: You either build a tolerance to it, or it'll eat you alive, I'm afraid.
• Action Girl: The cast has a large number of female characters, many of whom kick considerable amounts of ass. Liz slowly progresses into one.
• Action Survivor: Lizzie obviously, she's a former waitress forced to fend for herself in the Zombie Apocalypse. Alice and Lou can qualify as well, although the former has had training in how to shoot guns from her late father.
• Actual Pacifist: Lizzie wants to be one, but see below.
• Adrenaline Makeover: Lizzie's part of the story revolves around finding her badass survivor self before she gets killed like everybody else.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Lizzie's only way into the Omnimart.
• Alt Text: Starting in strip 285, counting from the beginning. One particularly notable example comes on Page 473, which has the Alt Text "KQMBz6HvSoM".^note Kickstart My Heart - Motley Crue.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Alice and Lizzie. Monday spells out for Lizzie that Alice is attracted to the her. Alice also gave Trenton a tearful goodbye kiss when he pulled a Heroic Sacrifice. And then for Liz, she has a boyfriend named Trevor; the relationship was even going well enough that the two were actually thinking of getting married, yet she also seems to reciprocate and appreciate a lot of Alice's affection and kindness.
  • Seems to leave the ambiguous territory and go straight into overtly bi with this comic page, where Lizzie finally admits to herself that she's in love with Alice.
• Anti-Hero: Monday; he's a cold-blooded hitman out to kill his employers and the other assassins in their Carnival of Killers. Yet when push comes to shove, he's willing to do the right thing if he's able to.
• Armies Are Evil: The Army unit that Cpl. Ross used to be in got some interesting ideas about repopulating the earth. The National Guard and/or regular Army also ended up fighting a small war with the city Police, although they view themselves as the good guys and it could arguably be considered a huge misunderstanding.
• Art Evolution:
  • Compare the first comic to the most recent ones. Though evolution had been ongoing, on page 139 the artist started using sharper lines in the foreground, a change which gelled noticeably over the following pages and moved into the backgrounds as well. It has continued to evolve slowly, and by 2018 her style is pretty well settled.
  • Also notable effects of the Art Evolution are the guns, whom at first look servicable and slightly recognizeable to slowly getting more and more detailed to the point that it's not only Gun Porn but with a keen eye, some can be identifiable.
• Art Shift: The between-chapter short arcs are black-and-white line drawings, as compared to the shaded grey-scale main comic. Compare this to this, for example. Most of the comic is in monochrome^note except Lizzie's scarf and Monday's glasses of course, but Lizzie's dreams are in color. Amusingly, the archive page illustrates this in how it shows the individual page references: grey blocks for normal comics, hatched black-and-white blocks for the end-of-chapter arcs, and red blocks for colored pages.
• Asshole Victim: The old man that Monday bonked, then stole his home and left to die a horrible death? Turns out to be a pedophile who was keeping a young girl named Sally in his closet. You might've felt pity for him at first, but that reveal just throws it all out the window.
• Atomic F-Bomb:
  • Lizzie lets one loose after going into her dream world and finding out that she's now Foite.
  • Stacy fires off another, with a literal (yet also obviously imaginary) mushroom cloud.
• Affably Evil: Johnny Rhythm is a genuinely nice person and generally won't kill you unless you're his target or you give him a reason to.
• Ax-Crazy: Frank, Lizzie's old boss. The man seemed to have anger issues before the Zombie Apocalypse started, but when it rolled around he's gotten even worse.
• Badass Boast: Yuri delivers a pretty damn good one.
• Badass Driver: As we discover when Patrick lends the team his car...
  Liz: Standard? Pssh! No sweat, Chet! I'm English, I can drive anything!
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Monday, most of the time; here's an example.
• Badass Longcoat: Monday, again.
• Badass Normal: Lou, compared to Monday, Alice, or Liz. He's pretty naive, yet he's a smart and stalwart friend fights off zombies with whatever he has to hand (including a plunger).
• Bandage Mummy: Happens to one of the members of the trio that checked out Tombstone, specifically the one who taunted Liz that he didn't tip.
• Batter Up!:
  • Monday shows proficiency with this trope. He even calls out some baseball plays, although he later discards it.
  • Fittingly enough, this is also Dale's weapons.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Lizzie's dream sequences consist of her trying to come to terms with her inner badass "Foite", whom she had suppressed for most of her life. She's literally forced to fight her own inner demons in order to be able to cope with the zombie-infested environment.
• Been There, Shaped History: Apparently Monday is responsible for the deaths of Anna Nicole Smith, John F. Kennedy Jr., and Kenneth Lay.
• Berserk Button:
  • Do not tell Lizzie that she doesn't have a choice.
  • Also do not taunt Lizzie about not tipping her because the food was bad.
  "THE FOOD IS NOT THE SERVER'S FAULT."
• The Berserker: Frank; the bastard's completely lost it thanks to the Zombie Apocalypse and his former employee Lizzie bailing out on him.
• Beware the Living: The Dead slowly become less and less of a nuisance to our heroes, so naturally the living people that have turned into psychos or are only out for themselves become more of a threat.
• Big Fun: Lou, as a giant contrast to Frank. Lou is overweight, but overall is a very friendly and helpful guy.
• Big "WHAT?!": Liz is asked to perform an heroic acrobatic feat on top of a moving van that's mowing down zombies, while she is suffering from multiple injuries and taking codeine^note which would affect her reflexes and judgement. Her reaction is less than enthusiastic.
• Birds of a Feather: Monday and Dale, the silent and incredibly badass members of their respective groups. When they first meet the two are clearly cautious of each other, but once they learn how similar they are the two get along really well.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Monday both delivers one and is a victim of this trope.
  • He shoots a police officer's shotgun out of their hands although it leaves him annoyed.
  • While Monday is playing with his knife, one of Tombstone's guards catches his attention. Just like the former he's very annoyed.
• Blue Is Heroic: Whenever the group is drawn outside its usual Deliberately Monochrome colors. Alice is usually depicted with shades of blue, which is quite fitting for the group's resident Team Mom and The Medic.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Yuri, the resident burly Husky Russkie.
• Break the Cutie: Alice, both in the present and the backstory. However, she never knuckles under.
• Brick Joke: Monday walks out after ordering here. Lizzie presents him with the bill here to get some cash for the vending machine. Then he finally gets his sandwich when Alice mans the cafeteria of Omnimart.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Take a look at the ground next to the soldier that nearly got a close shave.
• Broomstick Quarterstaff: Lizzie's iconic weapon is a mop she's grown proficient with not only in her days as a waitress but also being forced to use it throughout the zombie apocaylpse. While Frank does break the one she used throughout her time in his Diner, she picks up a replacement when going out of Chantelle's Birch Street Apartment.
  • And it seems to run in the family; when we get glimpses of her mother, it appears she's armed herself with a broomstick!
  • After losing her frying pan and Lizzie being needed to get into OmniMart through the air vents, Alice borrows her girlbro's weapon for a while to fend off the undead.
• The Brute: Frank; he may be overweight, but that guy's got some insane Stout Strength and durability.
• Bulletproof Vest:
  • Befitting his job as a badass assassin. Monday secretly wears one underneath his clothes. Apparently it's strong enough to save him from a close-range shotgun blast to the chest — even after that, he only appears to be lightly bruised. He's just that badass.
  • One of the pursuing army guys wears a bulletproof vest. It saves him from dying, and lets Monday adhere to Lizzie's Thou Shall Not Kill rules.
• The Bus Came Back: Happens twice when the Lizzie's group end up in Tombstone.
  • The OmniMart employees make their grand return in style!
  • Remember that girl Monday saved from a pedophile and brought back to her parents despite having to face an entire horde of zombies? It appears they made it to Tombstone and Sally even made a return!
• Call-Back: In the flashback showing the time when Monday was ambushed while resting in a hotel. The person manning the lobby is armed with a revolver that the Danny Trejo-looking assassin is seen using when accosting Monday in the alleyway.
• Car Fu: After the crew finally arrive in OmniMart, they realize they lost the ladder they were planning on using to gain access to the rooftop and now have to improvise. Seeing a large mob of shufflers near the area that Lizzie needs to climb for access to the OmniMart rooftop, Monday elects to use Lou's van for these purposes.
  Monday: Tell me...
  Alice: Hmmm?
  Monday: How far would you say that mob of stiff is?
  Alice: Huh? About.. fifty feet? I don't know.
  Monday: Closer to five hundred.
  Alice: Wh-what are you doing?! Is that bad?
  Monday: It ain't enough room.
  Alice: Enough room? Enough room for what?!
  Monday: Ramming speed.
• Carnival of Killers: Monday's subplot; he's been hired to take part in a little sport where assassins are being hired to hunt each other down by bored rich millionaires. Even when the zombie apocalypse happens it doesn't stop the games from continuing.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: As the undead becomes less and less of a threat the characters slowly start to engage in this.
  • The message Mr. and Mrs. Cooper leave for Lizzie while fighting off zombies. "Tell her Mum says to pack clean socks!"
  • Late in the comic, the group has picked up enough experience and weapons that the zombies are more of a nuisance than a genuine threat. This culminates in a scene with Lizzie and Alice singing as they're driving down the street at high speed while being chased by angry zombies, police, and a biker gang.
• The Character Ice Cream Bar: A fictional one, but the artist has drawn ice-cream bar versions of the main cast◊. invoked
• Chef of Iron: A horrible psychopath he may be, but you can't deny that Frank's one tough bastard. Crosses over to even Made of Iron as surviving getting hit by a huge metal pipe to the face that came from a speeding car is definitely nothing to scoff at.
• Chekhov's Gun: Unfortunately for the heroes, it's a bad one. The police hat Trenton gives to Alice comes back to haunt the group in a later chapter, when an Army squad sees the hat and think Alice is with the police, whom they are opposed to.
• Children Are Innocent: Every child that has appeared in the comic are usually shown to be cheerful and friendly despite it being the end of days.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Quite a few to go around, naturally because of the dire and stressful circumstances.
  • The leader of the Yellow Poncho group that sent a raiding party on OmniMart lets one out as the entire thing goes to hell.
• Continuity Nod: The house Alice and Trenton bring Lizzie to after her accident is the same house the noob lived in. Kind of a stretch, but there's a Counter-Strike poster on a door in Pg. 46, and what looks like the same poster on the door Lizzie closes on Pg. 60.
• Cool Car: Patrick's ride, It's the blue one just down the street ... you can't miss it.
• Cool Shades: Monday sports sunglasses with red-tinted lenses, He also has spares if they get broken.
• Cosy Catastrophe: Zigzagged.
  • On the one hand, the zombies are still a threat and are the main catalyst for why society has broken down. On the other hand, it's that reason why everyone seems to be living much differently, some better than others. Thanks to a massive case of Zombie Gait and most of the undead being rotten enough to be easily taken care of, they're usually not that much of a threat (in fact, this comic has a big case of Beware the Living). Some shelters seemingly try to live their lives normally, although still knowing that they have to be careful with limited resources.
  • Nothing exemplifies this trope more than Tombstone, a settlement where survivors have managed to at least find the next best thing to normality in the Zombie Apocalypse. People still have to do their parts and work jobs to help keep the town running; Tombstone even has their own currency.
• Covered with Scars: Lizzie after her car accident; they're healing (slowly), but are still lasting.
• Crazy Survivalist: Most characters are starting to sport shades of this to some degree, but the Reverend Phillip, who occasionally appears in intermission comics, tops most of them.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Lou is a naive Big Fun plumber, but when it comes down to it, he's pretty damn good at being crafty and fending off the diseased cannibals or belligerent survivors.
• Dance Battler: Capo Errol, who's got dance moves that are fast enough to easily dodge Monday's shots.
• Deadly Game: A large group of rich people is apparently behind a game of world-renowned assassins hunting each other for sport, with the assassins and their sponsors getting the bounty when they kill one of the other participants. Apparently, not all of the assassins in the game are there by choice; Monday certainly isn't.
• Decapitation Presentation: Frank, after his Sanity Slippage into an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer obsessed with Liz, begins decapitating and then attaching the heads of his victims to his belt. The first of them was Jack, and he is very eager to have Liz be the next one. After further Sanity Slippage, he starts targeting any blond woman that looks like Cooper.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Except for epic red accessories, and Lizzy's dreams. Actually played with when Lizzie gets her third headband, turning red as she puts it on.
• Denser and Wackier: While the main comic itself isn't exactly exempt from comedy and silliness, the mini-comics on the other hand crank it up to eleven.
• The Determinator: Everyone to an extent, given the environment, but boy does Frank hate Lizzie. Also Lizzie's cat, but that's just adorable.
• Disturbed Doves: A murder of crows a short distance away takes off when Lizzie lets out a Big "WHAT?!" on this page.
• Divided We Fall: Though the zombies/shufflers/infected are a serious threat, the cast often have more problems with other survivors being either overtly hostile or just unwilling to share resources. The Military, the Police and the Yellow Ponchos (later named Harbor City Hornets) are prime examples of this, as demonstrated here.
• Dramatic Irony: All the time. This comic loves showing us perspectives of people who are justifiably not communicating with each other due to mistrust, and that's not the least of the irony going around.
• The Engineer: Lou; he's a handyman who can do more than just fix up pipes, electricity, and vehicles. Even Monday made a passing snark that Lou may have been planning to make a vehicle out of scrap when they go to the Sons of Surtr's Scrapyard.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Quite a few.
  • Mr. Benjamin Sanders made his first appearance on the first page of the comic.
  • Tombstone's Gate-B gatekeepers made their appearance way back in page 101.
• Ear Notch:
  • A rare human example on Lizzie's right and Alice's left ear, mainly thanks to Arlen nearly hitting the two with his revolver.
  • Yuri also has one. Apparently, he got it while he was fighting a bear◊.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • While he may have a heart, Monday is a hitman, and he has killed innocent people, either because they were his targets or because they were collateral damage^note He killed JFK Jr.(and, by extension, his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister), as well as Anna Nicole Smith. However, he still cares about his parents.
  • Nigel Cooper, Lizzie's dad, acquires and manages safe houses for Santos' assassins, and possibly other things. He does love his family, which is why he keeps a good distance between his work and his family.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: Quite a few of the characters with headwear fall under this trope; examples include Jack, Reverend Phillip, and Sixgun Johnny.
• Eyepatch of Power: Discussed by Lou. According to him, pirates wore eye patches to keep one eye dilated for fighting in the dark below deck.
  • Foite has a bandanna covering one of her eyes to make it much more obvious that she's Lizzie's inner warrior and badass.
  • Then there's also Snake-Eye, one of Tombstone's Gravekeepers, though he wasn't wearing the eyepatch in his first appearance.
• Expressive Mask: Monday's red glasses often not only show his inner thoughts but also show things that wouldn't be in actual reflections, like the two skulls shown in the fourth panel here. Borders on Wingding Eyes at times.
• Expy: One of the assassins sent after Monday by Sloppy Joe looks remarkably like DannyTrejo.
• Fan Disservice: Nothing serious, but in a couple panels you can very clearly see Lou's buttcrack, and there are at least one or two instances where you can see a zombified woman's bare breasts. Also, Liz's scars from the car crash she got into can count as this.
• FanService: A little in the beginning, especially during the shower scenes, but nonexistent in later chapters. Really, with all the gore going on, would you want it?
• Fictional Currency: The Tombstone settlement has its own currency.
  GOOD LUCK FORGING THIS IDIOT
• Finger Gun: After stunning clark, she gets behind him and uses a Finger Gun while doing the Stick 'em Up trope.
• Fingore: Hinted at by Alice, when Liz knocks on the Omnimart door.
• Flipping the Bird: Liz really loves doing these.
• Foil: Lou and Frank are almost the complete opposites of each other. While Frank is a Fat Bastard, Lou is Big Fun. Even their relationships with Lizzie are polar opposites; while Frank was pretty close to being verbally abusive (now upgrading to physical abuse with a dose of psycho killer thanks to Sanity Slippage), Lou and Liz are quite friendly, though not close. The two can clearly depend on each other when they need each other's help and trust one another to have each other's backs.
• Fridge Horror: In-universe, Alice has a nasty realization. The implication seems to be that the bloodstain on the wall was there when she and Liz moved in because the last person who lived in there realized they were infected, and A) took their own life, or B) Chantelle took it herself.
  • Most likely A, due to the, ah, spray pattern above the couch.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Alice employs one of these on several occasions. She loses her first one while being chased by the police, but quickly arms herself with a new one when she and the group enter OmniMart.
• Funetik Aksent: Mainly Lou and Foite, but the author tends to have fun with those.
• Gang of Hats: The first true post-apocalypse bandit group to emerge are the Ponchos, so named because they all wear bright yellow ponchos as an identifying mark. They besiege the OmniMart a few days before Liz and co. arrive, and eventually encroach on the settlement of Tombstone.
  • To a lesser extent, the police and military have also become little more than glorified bandit clans utilizing the resources of their former occupations, all while waging a violent turf war against each-other. The police are myopic Knight Templars who intercept travellers and confiscate their goods, even going as far as to run vehicles off the road. The military platoon, meanwhile, suffered from a bad case of Testosterone Poisoning after the apocalypse and is heavily implied to be engaging in sex slavery under the pretext of repopulating the human race.
• Gardening-Variety Weapon: The hat-wearing member of the trio of raiders led by Marv uses the seldom seen manual polesaw as a weapon, wielding it like a Serrated spear with pretty good efficiency in a fight.
• Grievous Harm with a Body:
  • Foite tends to use Flight for these purposes. Such as using her as a ball-and-chain during a battle inside Lizzie's dreams and even throwing her at Lizzie when she tries to run away from them.
  • Lizzie herself uses this trope twice, using one zombie's head as a soccer ball against another zed. Another has her lifting a zombie (that soon turns into a corpse thanks to Alice's support) before slamming it down into one of the Yellow Poncho members.
  • And yet again, Lizzie finds herself being subjected to this trope, courtesy of Lou.◊
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Quite a few characters are willing to get their knuckles dirty when fighting the undead or belligerent survivors. Most of them even have the strength and badass-ery to back it up (though a looter in one of the early comics wasn't so lucky).
• Goofy Print Underwear: Apparently, Monday has fish-printed boxers.
• Gun Porn: Plenty of them to go around due to the Zombie Apocalypse. Despite the comic's artstyle, quite a lot of them are drawn in careful detail; if you have a keen enough eye, you can easily identify what kind of gun is being used. The crew has quite a bit of this to go around, but most definitely Monday's different handguns, Alice's Kel-Tec SUB-2000 and Lou's O/U (Over and Under) sawed-off shotgun.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • Monday really loves this trope as a part of his Establishing Character Moment. He steals a would-be assassin's revolver and begins raining hot lead. He also pulls out his signature glocks (with extended magazines) when bringing Sally back to her folks.
  • Johnny Rhythm is also quite fond of this, carrying a pair of Schofield revolvers.
  • Somewhat implied with Clark as he carries two revolvers. Although we mostly see him use one.
• The Gunslinger:
  • Monday again; he has a preference for handguns with having the most varied usage of firerms out of the main crew.
  • Also, Sixgun Johnny Rhythm, who has been brought in to go after Monday, looks like he stepped right out of a Western and has the aim to prove it too.
• Gun Twirling:
  • Due to being the main crew's gunslingin' assassin (although the other three don't know about that). Monday has pulled this trick off a few times. Even his WIP win animation◊ has him spinning his pistols.
  • As shown in some [[WIP] alternate win animations, Liz◊ and Lou◊ try to pull this trick off too, but they aren't as skilled as Monday and end up self-owning themselves.
• Hammerspace: Implied. Lou's companions have started to notice that he always seems to have a fresh sandwich. When called on it, he doesn't say anything, but zips his jacket closed.
  Monday: Where do you keep getting those things.
• Hand Cannon: A few to go around, like Yuri's obrez,^note A sawed-off Mosin Nagant Chantelle's revolver, and Clark's new handgun, which appears to be a Smith and Wesson Model .500 revolver.
• Handwraps of Awesome: Both Yuri and Dale have their hands wrapped in boxing tape/bandages, although for differing reasons. Yuri uses it to protect his fists when engaging in Good Old Fisticuffs against zombies (one notable moment has him punching a zombie's head off), while Dale has a few cuts on his arms which Alice patches up but it definitely increases his badass-ery.
• Hassle-Free Hotwire: Lou teaches the girls how to do this. This later proves to be a critical skill.
• The Heart: Alice is this for her group, although at times she can be pretty mean.
• Henpecked Husband: Ron, the assistant manager at OmniMart, suffers the boyfriend version of this trope thanks to Chloe.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Trenton pulls this for both Alice and Lizzie, getting most of the horde's attention and opening them a path so they could escape while he mows as much of them down. He does this out of necessity due to being a Zombie Infectee and already feeling himself succumb.
• Hidden Depths:
  • At first glance Lou's just a fat plumber, but he knows a lot about Roman history.
  • Hey, man, wouldn't you put some effort into studying the inventors and codifiers of your discipline? 'Sides which, the Romans are one of those classic subjects of study, between the politicking, the wars, the engineering, and the general debauchery of the later empire.
  • There's also Monday, the man maybe a cold-blooded hitman but he has his moments to show there's more to him than just guns and violence.
• Hitman with a Heart: Monday; he may be cold-blooded at times, but when it comes down to it, he can show some pretty good heart. See Pet the Dog.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Shortly before the zombie apocalypse, Monday is forced into a competition set up by a group of wealthy businessmen where a number of trained hitmen and assassins hunt each other in a crowded city. Even with the Zombie Apocalypse rolling around, the competition is still on.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Lizzie says this, to Monday's exasperation.
• Implacable Man: Frank. Took a steel pipe to the face at several miles an hour, and he's still going!
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Alice has them. Shooting the Rope while hanging out the window of a moving car? That's driving across the grass in the middle of a park? Natty Bumppo would be impressed!
• Improvised Weapon: Plenty, the most notable one being Lizzie and her mops alongside her using a soccer ball. At this point it almost seems like Lizzie's a master of this trope.
• Infernal Retaliation: The gang once encountered a horde of zombies that were on fire. Courtesy of Monday having kicked a highwayman into a pool of gasoline and throwing a lit cigarette at him.
• Instrument of Murder: Meet Eddie◊ the Axe Man◊.
• I Want My Mommy!: Lizzie calls out for her mommy when the air vent she was in begins collapsing. Provides the page image!
• Jerkass:
  • Rick. He talks Trevor into leaving Lizzie behind in the Zombie Apocalypse. Why? So he can drag Trevor up to a cave outside the city and live out some idiotic college fantasy with his old frat buddies drinking beer and getting laid. Trevor does not take this well at all.
  • Frank, who treats Lizzie like dirt when she was working in the diner despite her being pretty much his only reliable employee. When she finally defies him, he doesn't take it well.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Played with, while in one page there's a corpse with a katana laid beside it. We also see another survivor group that has one fighter armed with a katana and fending for himself quite easily. And one of the Yellow Poncho members is pretty good with a Katana and even puts up a good fight against Liz (even dual wielding it with the sheath) although sadly it gets broken when the user gets slammed by a zombie corpse courtesy of Liz (with some assistance from Alice).
• Law of Inverse Recoil: Averted here with an Unsound Effect.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: All the main characters, in some sense or another. Alice turns out to be extremely competent with guns thanks to childhood training, and Liz's mop-slinging abilities also prove useful for fighting off zombies. Lou eventually reveals a lot more toughness than his fat and flatulent exterior implies. Monday is introduced in this way, seeming like just some random guy in a bar about to be killed by a gang until he effortlessly slaughters them all.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: The main party frequently splits into pairs (usually Liz/Alice and Monday/Lou) to cover more ground and break up local herds of zombies into managable chunks.
• Little "No": Lizzie lets one out when she realizes her bag (and the keys to the car she was aiming for) are in the hands of a bunch of cannibals on the other side of a fence.
• Lighter and Softer: The mini-comics are this in both tone and style. While the main comic is Deliberately Monochrome with a stylized semi-realistic style, the mini-comics are black-and-white with the characters being slightly deformed into more cartoon-ish versions of themselves. In terms of tone, while the comic itself is for the most part pretty light-hearted and quite optimistic, the mini-comics are more focused on just being fun.
• The Load: Lizzie at first, but she gets better. Justified in that she started as a waitress and a pacifist with no martial training, and had just gotten out of a car accident with serious injuries.
• Love Epiphany: Happens on this page of the comic, where Lizzie finally comes to terms with the fact that she has fallen for Alice after everything they've been through together while also getting over her relationship with Trevor.
• The Medic: Alice, with a dosage of Team Mom for good measure. She's always there to help patch up the group whenever they get into some scuffles, but she's more than willing to extend that helping hand to other people.
• Mercy Kill: Trevor nearly does this to Lizzie at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, since he believes she doesn't have the skills necessary to survive. He couldn't force himself to do it, though.
• More Dakka: This page.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Every 100th page is an animated gif comic. No. 100 is Monday defending himself from a bad crew in an amusingly badass fashion, while no. 200 features Monday demonstrating why one does not fuck with him. In both cases, pretty damn badass and with explosions. In no. 300, there's no gunplay, no explosions... just Liz presenting Monday with his bill.
  • Behold, the power of a Full Night's sleep!◊
• My God, What Have I Done?: Trevor, who always regretted abandoning Lizzie when the zombie apocalypse started. Eventually his guilt gets the better of him when he sees that he abandoned his girlfriend for an absolutely asinine reason, and he goes back to try to find her.
• Nails on a Blackboard: A variant: zombie fingernails on a metal door. Which shortly upgrades to "zombie fingernails being torn off on the door as rotting connective tissues give way", thoroughly squicking Liz out.
• Neck Snap: Monday breaks the neck of a wannabe highwayman with one hand ^note After sticking his cigarette in his [[Eyescream eye]], then stealing his gun and also to a police officer.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Trenton goes out of his way to ignore the orders of leaving the city's denizens to fend for themselves, even charging into the local hospital to save Alice. All it gets him is a bite to the leg.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Lizzie delivers and is on the receiving end of this trope while fighting the Yellow Poncho trio led by Marv. All happening one after the other, too!
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Though it's obviously a Zombie Apocalypse, the zombies are referred to as "cannibals" and other terms when given a name. Otherwise, people make reference to them being sick, somehow.
  • Judging by the Genre Blindness these people have (they're doing well, but they're still Genre Blind), it seems like the concept of zombies was never conceived in this universe.
  • Lampshaded in the cast sheet, where their entry is outright titled "The Z-Words", and opens with the following: "Shufflers, rots, shamblers, cannibals; anything but the Z-Word."
• Odd Friendship: Monday and Lou get along surprisingly well, even if it appears one-sided. Hell it's almost a wonder Monday put up with Lou when they met in the first place.
• Off with His Head!: Frank tries this with Lizzie, and then goes on to inflict this on various blonde women he mistakes for Liz, with one recent victim being a cop.
• Oh, Crap!: Many times, but here's a good one.
• Papa Wolf: Monday goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his family is threatened.
• Pet the Dog: Monday gets one when he saves the kid from the zombies. He also adheres to Lizzie's maxim of "Don't kill anybody" for no apparent reason. Until the incident with Ron, that is.
  • "No apparent reason" could be that he (correctly) believes Lizzie's father is one of his employers, so he wants to stay on her good side to get to him.
• Pillow Pistol: During their stay in Tombstone, Monday has one of his Glocks hidden underneath his pillow completely visible. He nearly reaches for the damn thing thanks to Lou's Motor Mouth tendencies, thankfully stopping once Lou's sound asleep and immediately conking alongside him.
• Police Are Useless: Worse yet, they're part of the problem. When the apocalypse hit, the police chief called a "Code Citadel", which apparently means "Abandon the citizens, fortify police station, confiscate supplies". They're seen to send out cruisers and teams to apprehend and rob survivors like bandits, as Liz and co. experience firsthand. However, they still insist that they're maintaining the rule of law, and react harshly to any sort of resistance. So far there seems to be only one cop that's actually chosen to still try and save people, but sadly Trenton bites it.
  • The cops hate the military for taking over the task of containment, the deployed military troops hate them back for defying military orders. It gets to the point where both sides are willing to kill people from the other group and start a violent Turf war.
• The Pollyanna: Alice, who's a never-ending ray of sunshine in the darkness of the Zombie Apocalypse.
• Professional Killer: Monday's a hitman who's worth as much as he has killed. Taking some of his victims into account, he's worth a lot.
• Purple Is Powerful: Whenever Monday is drawn with color outside the comic's Deliberately Monochrome style, for some reason he is predominantly purple/violet. Even his Cool Shades which are usually colored red in the comic itself.
• Ramp-rovisation: Alice shoots down a hanging sign to serve as a ramp when the gang are leaving the park by car.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Monday, when asked for some last words by his sloppy would-be assassins..
  • Lizzie when she tells Frank to Take This Job and Shove It.
• Redemption Quest: Trevor is on one, after not only trying to Mercy Kill his girlfriend but leaving her to die in the Zombie Apocalypse.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Quite a few characters tout six-shooters that are chambered in pretty strong calibers, Sixgun Johnny Rhythm being one of the most prominent.
  • Revolvers Are for Amateurs: Then there's Arlen, who uses a snub-nosed revolver and clearly hasn't had proper training with it. He pulls it out to protect himself and his children (mostly by pointing it at strangers). Unfortunately, his gun-toting overprotectiveness costs him his life when he meets someone faster on the draw.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Monday is on one against his former employers, which is only temporarily interrupted by the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Frank is also on one, but for Disproportionate Retribution reasons.
• Rule of Cool: The webcomic runs on this rule sometimes, which is probably why quite a few of the main, supporting, and even antagonistic cast are still alive.
• Running Gag:
  • Lou and his sandwiches.
  • Lou will not shut up about Ancient Rome.
• Russian Reversal: Uttered by the resident Russian, no less.
• Self-Poisoning Gambit: Violet Blues uses this against her would-be assassins. Also see Acquired Poison Immunity.
• Serial Killer: Various intermission pages reveal that Frank survived being nailed in the head by a drive-by giant metal pipe and now stalks the city as a deranged maniac, ambushing and decapitating any blonde woman who passingly resembles Liz (to go along with his dead buddy Hijack's head).
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Monday's preferred sartorial mode. Includes Badass Longcoat and Waistcoat of Style.
• Shirtless Scene: Monday shows off a rather impressive physique on their first night in Chantelle's apartment building.
• Shout-Out: The main comic has quite a few references, but the mini-comics however crank these up to eleven.
  • Probably one of the first Easter Eggs in the comic is a cameo appearance of Jenny from The Zombie Hunters. Zombie Apocalypse Webcomics gotta stick together.
  • Monday quotes Dolemite while gunning down some goons that were sent to assassinate him.
  • In one of Lizzie's dream sequences, the alt text references Guilty Gear.
  Alt Text: Heaven or Hell. Duel 1. Let's rock!
  • And the mini-comic "Here Comes Daredevil" is more overt with it's Guilty Gear references.
  • This page has several, in plush form. A baby Cirbizoid, Skull the Troll, what may be the 'This is fine' meme dog and possibly others.
  • When Lizzie is driving Pat's car, you can see a familiar logo◊ on Pat's air freshener◊.
  • The two protagonists from Zombies Ate My Neighbors appear among the survivors residing in Tombstone. Thanks to the comic's Deliberately Monochrome style (with the only thing colored being red accessories), the red lens of Zeke's 3D glasses is colored.
  • The aptly titled "You Gotta Believe!" mini-comic is an obvious one to Parappa The Rapper.
  • "Straight to Monaco" does the good old Charlie Brown Football gag although the context is very different.
  • While operating on a patient ^*(who wears a cap that makes him look suspciously like a scout in "Sunny Side Up" Alice finds a bird inside of someone's intestines.
  • "Quittin' Time" is just Lou channeling his best Fred Flinstone impression.
  • "Brimstone Boleros" is an obvious one to the famous The Skeleton Dance.
  • "Reckless Hold'em" has a few to other card games.
  • "Double Shift" has double the references.
  • "Outfoxed"◊ is clearly modelled after old Rubber Hose era cartoons.
  • "Mix-Ups"◊ has Sally and Monday play a fighting game that's clearly based on Street Fighter.
  • The Cast page also has quite a bit of this. Clark's a competitive Team Fortress 2 player and Dan is the world 's #1 living Mega Man fan.
• Smoking Is Cool: Surprisingly large amount of smokers in this webcomic. Monday is a chain-smoking badass and his fellow stone-cold badass Dale enjoys a cig too.
• Spare a Messenger: The DannyTrejo look-a-like asks to be spared to be used as a messenger for his employer after their attempted assassination on Monday ends horribly, Monday doesn't really care for that sort of thing.
  Monday: ... What survivor?
• Splash of Color: While the comic has a Deliberately Monochrome style, red accessories tend to be one of the only things colored. Monday's shades and Lizzie's bandanna are rendered in bright red; in one very angry frame, so are Monday's eyes.
• Stupid Crooks:
  • Sloppy Joe, a clumsy hitman who outsources his work and is easily killed by Monday. Even the crooks he hired to kill Monday aren't exactly professionals either, with Monday makes a point of it just before tearing through them.
  • While Lou and Monday are walking around during the early stages of the Zombie Apocalypse, a bunch of looters steal a TV while a bunch of undead are converging on them. It doesn't take a genius to guess what happens to them next.
• Sunglasses at Night: Monday yet again, with the reasoning being handily explained here.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The mini-comics are normally more brighter and light-hearted than the main series but it's not afraid to catch you off guard◊.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Lizzie and Alice think there's some great loot to be found inside of a highrise office building. There's not◊.
• Tainted Veins: Jill, one of the OmniMart employees, is a Zombie Infectee sporting these.
• Team Mom: Sweet ol' Alice; she also doubles as The Medic.
• Technical Pacifist: Lizzie eventually develops into one of these. Killing rotters is simple matter of self-preservation, even though she believes that they're just insane plague victims, but she eventually accepts the need to fight human beings in order to protect the people she cares about (though she staunchly refuses to kill if it can be avoided, which leads to friction between her and Monday).
• Terrified of Germs: Frank. Lizzie uses this against him to win a fight.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Page 333 showcases a perfect example of this trope.
• Third-Person Person: Yuri, in the intermission strips. Somewhat fitting, as he's a big Husky Russkie.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Meeting's adjourned, BITCH!
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Monday turns his butterfly knife into a throwing knife almost effortlessly when facing some wannabe highwaymen.
• Toast of Tardiness: One of the Tombstone guards has a piece of toast on their mouth while they are running late for their shift. The Alt Text is just the author cheekily giggling.
• Too Dumb to Live: Considering this is a Zombie Apocalypse story, we naturally get examples that show how people aren't exactly cut out for surviving the end of times. Granted, zombies seem to not exist in their universe thanks to how Genre Blind even some of the savvier characters are, but there's still a couple examples that really take the cake.
  • The noob. Wearing headphones blasting loud music when you go out and fight a horde isn't exactly the best idea — it lets them sneak up on you.
  • A couple of looters think it's a good idea to steal a bunch of stuff from an appliance store. While hordes of diseased cannibals are running around. They pay dearly for it almost immediately.
  • Ron is operating under the impression that his pitiful role as store manager means jack during a Zombie Apocalypse. As if his employees care about keeping their shitty part-time jobs or even authority when there are zombies clawing at the doors. Needless to say, Ron overestimating his authority gets him killed.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Alongside the main plot, there's quite a few sub-plots. Most are shown during the end-of-chapter intermission strips, but some happen congruently with the main plot.
• Tragic Keepsake: As Trenton pulls a Heroic Sacrifice, he gives Alice his hat before ordering the two women to escape the horde.
• Unflinching Walk: Monday lights a small fire to let off some steam. Page 100, so it's animated, for more awesomeness.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Arlen, full stop. Even after the group risks their lives to get more food and supplies for Chantelle's building, Arlen convinces her to kick them out while they were doing it. If that wasn't enough, he sabotages their vehicle by taking the keys. This all bites him in the ass later on.
• Unsound Effect: Frequent throughout the comic. Such as, but not limited to:Mop!, Dooooor-Bell!, RECOILLESS, Plunge!
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Monday doesn't seem to be perturbed at all by the fact that he's surrounded by the undead, and Lizzie just doesn't notice for a couple hours.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: After Monday's rebellion, his employer sends two hitmen to his parents' house. Unfortunately for him, Monday's mother was herself an assassin in her heyday, and she discreetly poisons them.
• Violent Glaswegian: Lizzie's inner personality Fight Foite has the accent, anyway.
• Waistcoat of Style: After ruining his old shirt, Monday replaces it with a three-piece suit from OmniMart.
• Wallet Moths: Lizzie needs a cold drink, but is short on cash.
• Wall of Text: Tends to happen when Lou starts talking, especially about the Romans.
• Weapon Twirling: A WIP alternate win animation for Alice◊ has her doing this with a frying pan, but ends up owning herself.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Many characters tend to stick to weapons they really seem to like, which makes sense as using a weapon they are familiar with is key to surviving.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Lizzie + Mop.
    • Might be too early to say, but Liz seems to have averted the usual gun tropes and chosen a basic, easy-to-use, automatic pistol for her weapon. She even holds it with both hands — a rarity indeed.
  • Friendly Sniper: Alice, although Friendly Marksman would be more fitting thanks to her choice of weaponry.
  • Sawed-Off Shotgun: Lou begins lugging around a sawed-off over & under shotgun after stocking himself in OmniMart.
  • Guns Akimbo/Handguns: Black Monday Blues, of course. Overall he has a preference for sidearms/handguns but at times is willing to use bigger weapons.
    • See More Dakka above for all four at once!
  • Hilariously, there are alternate win animations with their alternate weapons that involve fumbling their Weapons Of Choice.
• Webcomic Time: As of December 2010, over 40% of the entire comic is about the ill-fated trip to the grocery store and back to the apartment and back out again after being kicked out at gunpoint, taking place over the course of a single day.
  • Lampshaded by Liz on page 393.
  Liz: My every bone is thankful this yearlong day has mercifully come to an end.
• Wham Shot:
  • The gang has just gotten a ride in Lou's van, and taken out Frank by hitting him with a drive-by pipe! Then, in the last panel of the chapter, astute readers might notice Frank's fingers twitching.
  • The zombies can run.
• World of Pun: Especially the mini-comics.
  • Alice wasn't listening because:
    Alice: Oh, sorry! I was in the zone. T-zone!^note The "T-zone" in shooting is formed by the line from the outside of one eye socket to the outside of the other, and the line down the bridge of the nose from there to the upper lip — a successful shot to this area basically causes the target to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut.
  • This cop pretty much writes Monday's Pre-Mortem One-Liner for him:
    Cop: Alright, Bill, look sharp! They're trying to jackknife around us. Stay on point and don't let them edge out of —
    Monday: Let me just... cut you off right there.
  • "Yo, Jimbo"!◊
• You Shall Not Pass!: Trenton does one for Alice and Lizzie ((but doesn't survive). Monday successfully pulls one off [[spoiler:against Frank and lives to tell about it.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Duh.
• Zombie Infectee:
  • Jill, one of the OmniMart employees, who was bitten in the arm at some point and cut it off in the hope of preventing infection. It didn't work. By the time the protagonists reach the OmniMart, Jill has developed conspicuous Tainted Veins, but she's actually competent and at peace with her condition. Unfortunately, she does eventually turn and has to be put down.
  • Averted in the case of Stacy, but this wasn't enough to convince Chantelle. Eventually it is revealed that she escaped to the streets, met up with Cuddles, and found her way to Tombstone.

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