The first was Friday’s Original Life comic (though to be honest, Jay Naylor started things out a week earlier by introducing the dragon Spike from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to a Nordic Dragonborn looking for a dragon soul to add to her collection. Okay, it was more chasing the kid sister off the television to play computer games, but it was a fun nod to both popular genres. Besides, Naylor’s glimpse into elements of Skyrim continues a tradition of the comic’s characters playing various games, including Mass Effect and Skyrim.

But what’s especially amusing about the glimpses we’ve been given of Skyrim is how much it strikes to the heart of various oddities. For instance, we have the eating of food in the middle of an armed conflict to replenish health, the inane quests from people too lazy to walk up several stairs to make a delivery (and paying hundreds of gold for this – laziness pays well it seems)… or even the… side effects of the Amulet of Mara (and let’s face it, in real life dating would be sooo much easier if something like this existed). Sure, these comics have had little to do with Original Life… but they’ve still been fun.

The second is a slice-of-life webcomic called Real Life Fiction that defies easy classification. Although I suppose you could call it a combination insanity/gamer comic. Unlike Naylor’s comic, RLF bounces from topic to topic like a hyperactive squirrel hooked on caffeine (which may be ironic, seeing that the main character has a squirrel perched on her head at all times). While the first comic didn’t make any sense to me (seeing that I have no idea who Garrison Keillor is or why Robin would associate him with the god Talos from Skyrim), the second comic on the Dwemer (or Dwarves) was delightfully twisted.

As anyone who’s played the game is aware, the extinct Dwemer (often called Dwarves by the humans in the game, despite the fact the Dwemer were in fact subterranean elves) had a demented interest in death traps and various torments. In fact, this rather delightful group enslaved some of their brethren who begged sanctuary from them and twisted them into a species that, despite the disappearance of their tormenters, wants nothing more than to wipe out every surface-dwelling creature in the world.

The game never does quite explain what happened to the Dwemer. Thus, in the tradition of gamer webcomics everywhere, RLF takes a stab at this mystery by suggesting the death traps that litter Dwemer domiciles in fact became so lethal that they wiped out the Dwemer race when they tried to do such ordinary chores as taking out the trash or checking on the laundry. The last panel, with the hardened warrior staring in shock and horror at the murderous washing machine busy mangling his laundry while charging him, just rings true somehow.

In an amusing twist, a ways back Real Life Fiction also poked fun at MLP:FIM by suggesting the series could “ponyfie” classic literature stories, such as Frankenpony or the Scarlet Cutie Mark. Though considering the series has already paid homage to I Love Lucy, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Besides, the longer a series runs, the more likely that it will attempt to adapt a Shakespearian play at some point. So ultimately, RLF may have been prescient with its suggestion.

Yes, I understand the very nature of the zombie apocalypse to shamble on, in a state of perpetual decay until putrescence finally renders it unviable. But the thing about zombie apocalypses is that they’re supposed to end, one way or another. Pete Abrams, on the other hand, keeps revisiting the zombie apocalypse until his comic has had more zombies and zombie-like entities in it than deadicated zombie apocalypse webcomics like Dead Winter and Zombie Hunters. And this isn’t a recent thing, mind you. Early on we had the nanite plague and KZK’s “deadite” zombies. When Zoë and Torg were trapped back in time, there were more zombies. KITTEN and KITTEN 2 very likely qualify as well… and of course there’s the geek zombies Zoë faced and the alien ghouls.

“Nom” is more of the same. It’s even taking a page from KITTEN and allowing Abrams to annihilate the secondary (animal) cast. And Abrams isn’t even daring to do the unthinkable and having comedic pets like Kiki and BunBun from succumbing permanently to the Nom meme. It would have been simplicity itself for Abrams to just uproot his characters and move them away from their current hidey-hole. This would have continued the plot that 4u City unveiled. Hell, we could even learn what happened to Sasha (whom Abrams has purged from his comic once more, now that Riff has returned). “Nom” serves no practical purpose and just rehashes material he’s been overusing for years now… without even improving the material. Enough is enough, Mr. Abrams. One zombie apocalypse plot is great. Three is fun. Five is tiresome. You’re inventing a whole new category of stale. It is time to let sleeping zombies lie.