<\/td><\/tr><\/table>I’m pretty happy with how Left 4 Dumb turned out. It was a lot of fun to make and I think there were a few laughs in there even for people who haven’t played Left 4 Dead. But it’s not quite what I’d aimed for in the beginning. I began DM of the Rings with the intention of making 20 or so comics, and wound up with 144. I began Left 4 Dumb with an arc that could have run for months, and ended after just 20 strips or so. <\/p>\nI’ve realized that one of my great joys in writing is finding cracks in an existing plot and coming up with “clever” explanations to cover them. During DM of the Rings, I explained the seeming nonsense<\/a> and inexplicable changes<\/a> of the Lord of the Rings movies. In my book, I filled in plot holes in System Shock<\/a>. A lot of my humor is based around finding gaps in someone else’s writing (real or contrived on my part) and then justifying it in unexpected ways. I really, really wanted to do that for Left 4 Dumb.<\/p>\n
<\/td><\/tr><\/table>The thrust is that all of the sad, annoying, or nonsensical stuff in the game is the result of our hapless protagonists. The 
<\/td><\/tr><\/table>I would have had some jokes about the start of the drains. You know, the sewers that seem to be inside of a building. On top of a hill. With no visible access to roads or other infrastructure. I don’t know why you would make a building for your sewage, or what you would do with it (it’s obviously not a water treatment facility) but I do know you need to have a way for the people who work in the building to get to it.<\/p>\n
<\/td><\/tr><\/table>Eventually they would reach the church, where the nice man inside would let them in and offer them food and a place to stay. Francis would bite him, as a joke. Zoey would then pull Francis aside and point out that while the four of them are immune<\/em>, they are probably still carriers<\/em>, and Francis has probably just infected the guy. Oops! They make their excuses and hurry away, and Francis tells the guy not to bite anyone. “Better safe than sorry!”, he says before running off. <\/p>\n
<\/td><\/tr><\/table>Generators, vehicles, and other potentially useful things are mixed in with dirt (from where?) and used to build a heap that forms a ramp on the attacker’s<\/em> side and a wall on the defender’s<\/em> side. A minigun is then pointed at the wall and set close to it, so that it won’t be useful until the attackers crest the top of the very-helpful ramp. This means the ramp not only traps the defenders, but it helps the attackers into the base and shields them from gunfire until the last moment. Brilliant. <\/p>\n
<\/td><\/tr><\/table>They would eventually reach the boathouse, where Bill would wander in and strike up a conversation with John & Amanda Slater (a fishing vessel!) while the other survivors were off doing something else. John would have been put off by Bill’s profound cluelessness and his circular conversational skills. Eventually John learns that Bill doesn’t even have a gun, just a broom. He then makes an excuse that they’re only interested in people who have guns. <\/p>\n