Hi,
To us, "Dead Bug" assembly was a literal and legitimate prototype assembly method (in the late '60s). The (DIL) Integrated Circuits were mounted upside down (maybe even glued) directly onto the "breadboard", with their legs (pins) facing up into the air. All the Inter-Connections were then made directly onto the (upwards) ends of the pins, for example with "Wire Wrap" (single core) insulated wire for Logic circuits.
But my preferred method was to mount the DIL ICs through punched "Veroboard" (usually without the now-familiar copper strips) and create a "pseudo-PCB" layout by bending the leads of the through-hole components, and perhaps additional "BTC" (Bare Tinned Copper) wire, to create the interconnection tracks. In both cases, all the IC pins are numbered in the logical Clockwise sequence !
Cheers, Alan.