No, I don’t mean the mindless shoppers out on your high street of a Saturday daytime. I’m actually on about a rather good comic book series that follows a group of people during a Zombie epidemic and how they survive.
Now zombies I guess right now are a fashionable topic – it’s probably the favourite end of the world scenario. We’ve all seen (I hope) some zombie filums where the epidemic starts, people die more zombies turn up and either they all get killed off or everyone dies. Nothing new here.
Where Walking Dead is so unique is it starts at the outbreak following an average guy, Rick, but the story is more focused on how this guy and his family survive now that this reality is their every day life. We follow him as he and others get to grips with what is happening and dealing with people that he’s lost.
We follow along as the characters scavenge, survive and group together working to fend of the zombies. At times they get to safe points able to get some kind of normal life going and then 9 times out of 10 it gets ruined by another groups greed for what our guys have. Every turn of the pages shows their struggles just to live a mundane existance and every so often another twist happens which makes you have to go back a few pages to make sure you didn’t misread anything.
Whilst the story telling by Robert Kirkman is amazingly layered, with plots, sub-plots and characters all developing the real gift is that no character is too precious to be untouched by any incident, making this a truly un-predictable story. A very rare thing indeed. I would bet any first time readers wouldn’t be able to guess who’s going to survive, die, lose something, flip out etc.. And so in this sense its a very real, believeable and accessible story which I think is the main draw and what appeals most to me.
Of course being zombies there is a decent level of action and gore, after all this is survival. This is where the artwork comes in, all done in black and white by Charlie Adlard, it reinforces the realism and grim story and it is wonderfully drawn sparing no effort or detail to produce such vivid imagery as having a limb being cut off or a full on zombie attack.
I think there is also a level of ‘what the fuck?’ which can be both humerous and disgusting. The way these moments happen is very subtle and built up well but you never expect them. This is probably what helps tie Walking Dead to the zombie filums and horror genre – the constant build-up, excitement, humour and shock.
Whilst this is issued in individual comics, I think its best to read it in the graphic novel formats (now on issue 10) as you can read a decent amount letting you get absorbed without having to muddle through and change 100’s of issues.
So if you haven’t read it then pick it up, granted it’s not most amazing piece of literature of all time, but I’ll bet it’s one of the most addictive and enjoyable things you’ll read. It’s pretty easy to see why its won awards and apparently there’s talk of a TV series – but whoever’s doing that please don’t ruin it for the sake of a paycheque.
“An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV.
Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.”
http://www.hiddenrobot.com/WALKINGDEAD/
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