So I’m a little obsessed with the Zombpocalypse at this point in time. Between my recent obsession with the amazingly good Left 4 Dead and my strong desires to read books like World War Z, I found myself purchasing a comic book that I heard recommended by Shawn Elliot on the now defunct GFW Radio (now known as LAN Party).
The Walking Dead was mentioned by the podcast members to be a mature and complex view of the end of the world following the Zombie Apocalypse. It’s not your typical short, two-hour movie that ends, it is, as Robert Kirkman likes to make a point of stating (it appears on the back of each book), a continuing story of survival horror. His afterward on the first volume speaks about his dissatisfaction with the ending of all those movies. About his disappointment with the lack of a critical look at how society would proceed following the end of the world.
As a result, he created this series with a short term goal of at least 100 issues, but with the intention of lasting as long as he could manage to stay in print (technically as long as he wants to keep doing it). So far he’s doing a pretty good job of it too. The series isn’t too full of cliches and it does have characters whose archetypes haven’t been fully explored in zombie movies. In fact, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen any zombie media that has children in it, for example.
The story centers mostly around Officer Rick Grimes who was shot and went into a coma only to awake weeks later alone in a hospital filled with zombies. He reunites with his family and the story continues from there.
There are a few problems that I have with the book though, basically stemming from narrative weakness at times. Sometimes character motivations are erratic or strange, but this can be explained with the all-too-convenient “we’re all stressed from the apocalypse,” which I’m still not a fan of. There is also plenty of character culling that occurs almost too frequently. I know we can’t have the characters not die or it becomes boring or unrealistic in terms of the zombpocalypse, but as I said, sometimes it happens to often and you’ll lose a character that you just met a few issues ago or there will be a wholesale cleaning out of the unnecessary cast members.
SPOILERS:
Also, with the elimination of the Woodbury now and the deaths of both Lori and Judith, one has to wonder what the whole goddamn point of her pregnancy was? Why put us through all of that, the potential illegitimacy of the new baby, and all that jazz only to kill her soon after delivery. I’m also hoping that Andrea is still alive along with Glen and Dale, but I know that if I were to pick up the comic books and not wait for the next hardcover, I could easily know right now about some of these decisions.
/SPOILERS
With that said, I do really enjoy the book and I plan to continue to read it as it is released. You’re doing a great job Kirkman, keep it up!
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