Talk:Zombie Americans

Humour: 5 Hi Lucyfer! I have been a good boy lately, so no need to take me to hell yet.

First of all, I'd like to say that you are not required to follow all my suggestions. That's what they are: suggestions.

On the whole, it is a nice effort, Wlado, however, you tend to state the obvious too much as they say on HTBFANJS. What I mean is instead of telling us the Americans are stupid, let the reader come to the logical conclusion that they are. Exemple: You say:

"The reason why Zombie Americans look like zombies because they take poisonous vaccines/vitamins everyday, eat MSG and Aspartame-induced foods, and drink sodium-floridated water/other drinks, and watch 72 hours of Fox News reports." Alright, but you could go more subtly like:

"The American populace rejoices in every great opportunity they are offered by their government to improve their lives: inject themselves with vaccines against the Polar bear flu, keeping their teeth healthy with massive dosages of fluoride that would kill a horse and watching FOX NEWS 72 hours a day! They are happy because they know their government cares!"

You know, let the reader think a bit, following my drill? That's pretty much an exemple that will help you for the whole article. Also, from top-to-bottom, it seems like there is no development of an idea. It feels like the last paragraph could be the 1st and vice versa. Start smooth, develop your ideas!

Intro

The intro is the best part of the article in my view. I like the joke at the opening quote with Captain Oblivious. At first I thought you made a mistake, but I then realized the originality of it. I feel however that you should get rid of the second quote, as it pretty much says what's in the picture to the right. Maybe replace it with another one, I am reminded of one by George Carlin. " It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." After that, you start way too strong in my opinion. Why not start Encyclopedia-style? Like:

"The American Zombie is a species that inhabits...." so on. The "pointing towards Washington" thing is very good, you could be a lot funnier with the "Pillars of America". Are Shadada, Salat, Romadan, Zakat, and Hajj the real pillars of Islam? Change that! (say Greedada, Moneyat, Fascistan, so on) There is a possibility for a great joke here! Take your time to find some great names for the pillars.

The use of terms like "turd, retard" and all is seldom funny and you could definitely delete some and replace with more subtle insults.

The Zombie American Ways of Life

You have to limit yourself to some topics my friend in order to develop them! There are like 15 things in this section that Americans do. Take one and make a paragraph on it by developping it. 3 or 4 max I believe. Get rid of "drives a Toyota Camry", with the state of their economy, they're more likely to drive a bicycle! Also, you're going all out too much, especially in the second paragraph. Subtility is key to comedy. The third paragraph is better, but you could work it some more with the Bin Laden thing and not shifting abruptly to the IQ subject. Think about transitions.

Worshipping & Supporting the System

The first paragraph needs a major rethinking or straight down huffing, you are too straightforward once again! Did I mention subtlety? lol The saluting of a police officer who will bash your head the next day is good, it deserves to be expanded. Good idea to develop in a solid paragraph.

You also switch a lot in the narrative form from "they" to "us". Try to stick to one, at some point we think you are speaking directly to the reader about the Americans ("they"), at other times, it seems you talk about you ("us"). It's confusing.

Another passage where you need to be more subtle in order to be funny: "If you get out of line by using critical thinking of why there's something wrong with this country, or if you dare to defile the laws by protesting against them; you will be arrested violentley by the CIA pigs for "Conspiracy To Cause A Future Crime", and you will be sent to a local FEMA Concentration Camp; where you will be starved, tortured, and worked to death."

That is almost the only paragraph where you stick to your idea, but once again I refer you to HTBFANJS.

The conclusion is OK, but it is on the same tone as the whole article. A conclusion should be a kind of climax, read some featured articles here or better, go on TheOnion.com to have an idea of a great conclusion to an article.

Concept: 7 Definitely a good concept. You come up with some great topics like the FEMA camps, the policeman salute, etc. but you fail a bit at exploiting them efficiently.

Prose and formatting: 5 I remember I reviewed your article Avant Garde Jazz. I feel you did slightly better in Avant-Garde Jazz than here, so I am sure you can improve. It feels like the beginning of the article has OK prose and grammar, and then it goes south as it progresses. There are a lot of passages that are problematic, especially in the last section. There are also a lot of typos left, a suggestion: always keep a dictionnary on another app as you are writing. That is what I do anyway, since I am French and my articles would just be filled with mistakes if I didn't do that. That Pee Review is probably a spelling nightmare because I don't have one opened right now. I also always keep a synonym dictionnary so I don't write the same word over and over. That's a useful tip I believe.

The formatting is alright, but since there's only one pic it's kinda easy. Why don'tyou enlarge the pic and put its code atop the edit screen so that it really is atop the article?

Images: 7 Well, you have only one image, and it is a good one, I corrected the caption. Of course, it will be easy to find one or 2 other great pic to illustrate your article.

Miscellaneous: 6 Don't ask me why.

Final Score: 30 I hope I did better than the last review you've got LOL. There is place for improvement, but you can do it, Lucyfer. I hope I didn't sound too harsh, I feel a Pee Review is not a place to throw flowers, but a place to point out the weaknesses so the author has a basis to work with. Don't forget to spend time on your article, I sometimes spend 15 minutes on 2 sentences in mine! Also, the art of polishing is a fun thing to do: you just change small things (synonyms, adding a fancy adjective here and there.) I hope that helped!

Reviewer: Talk Mattsnow 16:21, July 15, 2011 (UTC)