Author notes

235 - Emergency Procedures

El Cid

on July 19, 2018

If you haven't voted yet for the 2018 Drunk Duck Awards, they'll be keeping the ballot open until July 28, so you still have time. The Drunk Duck Awards are your opportunity to show appreciation for the DD comics you love, so be sure to take a few minutes to visit the Drunk Duck Awards ballot and cast your votes. If you're thinking about voting for this comic, these are the main categories I'm trying to snag:





Thanks to everyone who votes! (and also to those of you don't, for whatever mysterious reason)





I'm too lazy to do an honest-to-God blurb, so I'll just link to some interesting videos. This scene is all about mind control, and interestingly enough, real mind control exists in nature. So here are some videos of real parasitic organisms that take over their host's brain and force it to do their bidding!

Orphiocordyceps unilateralis is a fungus which targets insects. The infected host exhibits strange behavior, and will wander off to a location suitable for fungal growth, where it will wait there patiently until fungal stalks erupt from its body, killing it and spreading spores to infect new victims.



Taxoplasma gondii is a microorganism which infects rats and causes them to lose their fear of predators. Infected rats will actually behave aggressively toward cats, chasing and pouncing on them. The method behind this madness is that taxoploasma gondii can only reproduce inside the digestive system of cats, and so it hijacks the rats in order to get eaten.



The emerald cockroach wasp injects neurotoxins into a cockroach's brain, rendering it docile and suggestible. The wasp will then lead the zombie cockroach into a specially constructed burrow where it lays an egg on the host's body. When the egg hatches, the larva will eat the cockroach over the course of several days. The cockroach, though still very much alive, mindlessly submits to being slowly devoured from the inside out.