I’ve actually mentioned this to several people but no one believes me. Same with the zombie apocalypse.
I tell them “Either the nukes will sink all the continents, or they’ll create a localized apocalypse that will only last one century./Yes, I understand that the zombie virus is *possible*, but by your logic, everyone on earth should have died of rabies by now.”
I think it would be anything that worked more along the lines of small pox that would really take us down. Actually, it’s probably seriously just small pox that would ever do a global wipeout like that.
Take a careful look at the “tell” that the kids have in the third movie. Their pretend-TV tells the full story of their holocaust. Also, there are other less obvious indications that there was a nuclear incident. I like to think it’s that us Aussies got sort of left out of the worst of the war, and cut off from the rest of the world, but no doubt we would get bombed too. Sigh.
You know, those post apocalypse punks are shortminded morons. I mean what are they going to do when the fuel run out? rough riders? more like rough walkers (or runners, unless they smoke their lungs out).
They also only 1 generation strong. They can’t even plan their future “little punks” since they keep killing women they capture. Nice going morons.
I’m still laughing at the string of bug scalps with antennae sticking out. Often it’s the little details that TOTALLY make this comic hilarious. Great job as usual, Adam!
But really, Adam, are you saying it would be less crummy if a nuclear apocalypse DID cover the earth evenly? And have you read Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach”?
So which continent is the pork chop and which is the steak?
Well, that is assuming the white parts are land.
If its the other way around ….. shame on you for such vulgar illustrations…. XD
So, it’d be like living in Detroit and then driving to the suburbs?
Seriously though, having grown up during the Cold War and being a science geek, I know waaaaay to much about the effects of nuclear weapons and nuclear war. The problem with nuclear weapons is that they produce fallout that spreads in lethal amounts for at least hundreds of miles. The Soviets target every city in the free West with a population of 50,000 or more plus all the economic and military targets. Except for a small pocket of northern California, the entirety of North America would have been covered in lethal fall out following an empty the silos nuclear war.
Anyone not in a shelter for at least two weeks would die. All the mammals and birds would be killed as well as most crops. Europe and Japan would have been even worse off.
In the 1950s, it was thought that Soviet bombers could only hit coastal cities so if people did the whole “duck and cover” thing to survive the initial burst and then made it to fallout shelter for a couple of weeks the interior parts of the country could come to their rescue. Once the Soviets fielded thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles, many targeted at the heartland, that hope died.
Soviet doctrine was to take everyone out everyone who could threaten a post-nuclear war weakened Soviet Union so they targeted anyone with an industrial base all nations that bordered the Soviet union regardless of ideology. China, India, South Africa, Taiwan, Korea, Turkey, Iran, Iraq etc would have all got nuked as well.
That’s why I tell kids all worried about terrorism of global warming to relax. We dodged the big bullet 25 years ago. Just about everything else from now on, including a Zombie outbreak, is cake.
What would National Cash Register have to do with it?
I am all for Lazlo as the best all round post apocalyptic city there will ever be. It is pretty darn nice right now as well. warm though pollen level are high today.
AH YES. I remember a book from the early 80’s. “The Fate of the Earth” by Schell. A republic of insects and grass. My first exposure to the thought of Nuclear Winter.
I’m still of the belief that it’s just a matter of when, not if.
Well, the threat of hair trigger planet wide destruction is largely gone. Both the US and Russian Federation have altered the default targeting of their missiles to the oceans so if one goes off accidentally, it won’t head for a populated region.
Besides, with changing technology, the era of the ballistic missile is ending just like the era of the atomic carrying bomber ended. We’ve been fairly reliably swatting missiles down for nearly 20 years. Most experts don’t believe the North Koreans can get one past our missile defense in Alaska. Pretty soon, railguns and lasers will be able to bring down any flying object over the horizon.
We might face other issues but nothing like the empty the silos scenario from the cold war.
I think even Soviet doesn’t want to do the full scale bombing. After all the chest thumping and “patriotic outburst” died down they finally sit down and think they realized that even when they murder everyone in the world except themselves it will be pretty pointless and stupid.
Good thing Mao era China doesn’t own nukes. They are worse, I mean, remember the cultural revolution? even the Chinese govt admit that that’s the stupidest thing they ever done to their own country. China nowadays are better, since they prefer to build their economy rather than their military.
North Korea is probably the old relic of the cold war era. They still hold the firm believe that “nuke em all” is the best solution.
They Soviets had a very dangerous internal dynamic in which the hardliners didn’t trust the others to push the button if necessary. So, Soviet doctrine and all the training and systems were based around the presumption of a massive preemptive strike.
It didn’t help that all Soviet military training heavily emphasized that the Soviet Union could easily survive such a war.
It got so bad the Soviets created their own version of failsafe which consisted of one guy in a bunker in the Ural mountains with all the launch codes and standing orders to destroy the world if he was cut off from communication with Moscow for more than IIRC 3hrs. They created that hair trigger system so the hardliners would always know that somebody would push the button so the hardliners wouldn’t try to do it themselves.
In short, the Soviet system didn’t have a lot of thinking or second thoughts from the political leaders. It was a ghastly automatic machine.
Actually, the thing with Nuclear warfare is that there is no possible winners. If one country fired off the nukes, the recipient country would notice that they were launched before they hit, and they would reciprocate, and so would the allies of either side. So theoretically, there would be untouched areas, but they wouldn’t be functioning like that, because chances are they would have had the government/law enforcement, etc sent off or crippled.
The bewilderment depicted in Panel 3 is brilliant!
I’ve actually mentioned this to several people but no one believes me. Same with the zombie apocalypse.
I tell them “Either the nukes will sink all the continents, or they’ll create a localized apocalypse that will only last one century./Yes, I understand that the zombie virus is *possible*, but by your logic, everyone on earth should have died of rabies by now.”
I never really thought about it, but you’re right.
I think it would be anything that worked more along the lines of small pox that would really take us down. Actually, it’s probably seriously just small pox that would ever do a global wipeout like that.
Mad Max was about aftermath of nuclear war?
Nah, it’s just casual Friday in Australia.
“Like”. =P
The 2nd and 3rd. It pretty clear in the end of the Thunderdome.
Take a careful look at the “tell” that the kids have in the third movie. Their pretend-TV tells the full story of their holocaust. Also, there are other less obvious indications that there was a nuclear incident. I like to think it’s that us Aussies got sort of left out of the worst of the war, and cut off from the rest of the world, but no doubt we would get bombed too. Sigh.
You know, those post apocalypse punks are shortminded morons. I mean what are they going to do when the fuel run out? rough riders? more like rough walkers (or runners, unless they smoke their lungs out).
They also only 1 generation strong. They can’t even plan their future “little punks” since they keep killing women they capture. Nice going morons.
I think it’s funny that bugs have square heads but round skulls. I also think the idea that bugs have skulls is really funny….
I’m still laughing at the string of bug scalps with antennae sticking out. Often it’s the little details that TOTALLY make this comic hilarious. Great job as usual, Adam!
That and the skulls with antenna-bones.
But really, Adam, are you saying it would be less crummy if a nuclear apocalypse DID cover the earth evenly? And have you read Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach”?
Thanks, man!
I like how the skulls still have antennae, but they’re jointed, like they’re made of bone. Totally nice detail, Adam.
Also, that globe is hilarious! Bugs apparently don’t live on Earth. Ha! We’re reading a strip about aliens and didn’t even know it!
What are you talking about? That is a TOTALLY accurate representation of the Earth. I painstakingly mapped out all the land masses and everything.
So which continent is the pork chop and which is the steak?
Well, that is assuming the white parts are land.
If its the other way around ….. shame on you for such vulgar illustrations…. XD
*LIKE*
So, it’d be like living in Detroit and then driving to the suburbs?
Seriously though, having grown up during the Cold War and being a science geek, I know waaaaay to much about the effects of nuclear weapons and nuclear war. The problem with nuclear weapons is that they produce fallout that spreads in lethal amounts for at least hundreds of miles. The Soviets target every city in the free West with a population of 50,000 or more plus all the economic and military targets. Except for a small pocket of northern California, the entirety of North America would have been covered in lethal fall out following an empty the silos nuclear war.
Anyone not in a shelter for at least two weeks would die. All the mammals and birds would be killed as well as most crops. Europe and Japan would have been even worse off.
In the 1950s, it was thought that Soviet bombers could only hit coastal cities so if people did the whole “duck and cover” thing to survive the initial burst and then made it to fallout shelter for a couple of weeks the interior parts of the country could come to their rescue. Once the Soviets fielded thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles, many targeted at the heartland, that hope died.
Soviet doctrine was to take everyone out everyone who could threaten a post-nuclear war weakened Soviet Union so they targeted anyone with an industrial base all nations that bordered the Soviet union regardless of ideology. China, India, South Africa, Taiwan, Korea, Turkey, Iran, Iraq etc would have all got nuked as well.
That’s why I tell kids all worried about terrorism of global warming to relax. We dodged the big bullet 25 years ago. Just about everything else from now on, including a Zombie outbreak, is cake.
So… if northern california is untouched, we can found the NCR, right?
Awesome. Awesome.
What would National Cash Register have to do with it?
I am all for Lazlo as the best all round post apocalyptic city there will ever be. It is pretty darn nice right now as well. warm though pollen level are high today.
NCR in this instance stands for “National Capitol Region” in the United States- generally the area within about 50 miles of Washington D.C.
I think it refers instead to the New California Republic, a faction in the Fallout games.
AH YES. I remember a book from the early 80’s. “The Fate of the Earth” by Schell. A republic of insects and grass. My first exposure to the thought of Nuclear Winter.
I’m still of the belief that it’s just a matter of when, not if.
Just because the world wasn’t destroyed 25 years ago doesn’t mean we should “relax” regarding today’s issues.
Well, the threat of hair trigger planet wide destruction is largely gone. Both the US and Russian Federation have altered the default targeting of their missiles to the oceans so if one goes off accidentally, it won’t head for a populated region.
Besides, with changing technology, the era of the ballistic missile is ending just like the era of the atomic carrying bomber ended. We’ve been fairly reliably swatting missiles down for nearly 20 years. Most experts don’t believe the North Koreans can get one past our missile defense in Alaska. Pretty soon, railguns and lasers will be able to bring down any flying object over the horizon.
We might face other issues but nothing like the empty the silos scenario from the cold war.
I think even Soviet doesn’t want to do the full scale bombing. After all the chest thumping and “patriotic outburst” died down they finally sit down and think they realized that even when they murder everyone in the world except themselves it will be pretty pointless and stupid.
Good thing Mao era China doesn’t own nukes. They are worse, I mean, remember the cultural revolution? even the Chinese govt admit that that’s the stupidest thing they ever done to their own country. China nowadays are better, since they prefer to build their economy rather than their military.
North Korea is probably the old relic of the cold war era. They still hold the firm believe that “nuke em all” is the best solution.
They Soviets had a very dangerous internal dynamic in which the hardliners didn’t trust the others to push the button if necessary. So, Soviet doctrine and all the training and systems were based around the presumption of a massive preemptive strike.
It didn’t help that all Soviet military training heavily emphasized that the Soviet Union could easily survive such a war.
It got so bad the Soviets created their own version of failsafe which consisted of one guy in a bunker in the Ural mountains with all the launch codes and standing orders to destroy the world if he was cut off from communication with Moscow for more than IIRC 3hrs. They created that hair trigger system so the hardliners would always know that somebody would push the button so the hardliners wouldn’t try to do it themselves.
In short, the Soviet system didn’t have a lot of thinking or second thoughts from the political leaders. It was a ghastly automatic machine.
NEW SLOGAN: Burger King, our food survives the apocalypse.
I guess apocalypse bug will have to Mohawk his scalps somewhere else.
Actually, the thing with Nuclear warfare is that there is no possible winners. If one country fired off the nukes, the recipient country would notice that they were launched before they hit, and they would reciprocate, and so would the allies of either side. So theoretically, there would be untouched areas, but they wouldn’t be functioning like that, because chances are they would have had the government/law enforcement, etc sent off or crippled.