Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead ZombiesWhen I originally grabbed my first issue of The Walking Dead, I really wasn't expecting much. Simply wanted to read something about zombies as a follow up to the highly atmospheric World War Z. It looked after all just like another dark and gritty, monthly, slightly banal, black and white comic with zombies in it.Then again, the quality of the art was pretty impressive, and despite an incredibly clichéd opening, the story felt promising, interesting and extremely subtly hinting at imaginative new ideas. Thing is, the first issue of The Walking Dead left me wanting for more and happily, after hundreds, possibly thousands of pages later, I must say I'm glad I decided to stick with the series.

The Walking Dead, you see, sports the Romero kind of zombie and, beside sporting some excellent, complicated and realistic characters, manages to come up with an intriguing critique of mankind's brutality, simultaneously with a celebration of its greatest moments. After all, in any good zombie story, the zombies are not the main, let alone the only, adversary, and all post-apocalyptic worlds can be a literary social testbed. The tons of gore and gripping, at times deeply disturbing, plot can thus be considered a lovely bonus to a dark vision of humanity.

I strongly suggest you have a look at the official The Walking Dead website. You can also grab copies of The Walking Dead via Amazon.

5 comments:

  1. a tv show of this is on the way btw

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  2. Might have to grab some copies.. A tv show would be nice too..!

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  3. @ Anonymous: I've heard that and I believe it could be done reasonably well, if toned down.

    @ Deitrix: Grab 'em and you'll thank me!

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  4. I dunno. I like my zombies counter-cultural, and The Walking Dead, at least in the couple of collected editions I read, seemed to follow the rather conservative survivalist take on the genre (similar to what I've heard about World War Z, actually).

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  5. I generally like my counter-cultural zombies too, but to my shame I must admit I enjoyed World War Z, despite it being openly reactionary and borderline fascist. As for The Walking Dead, I must admit I'm quite addicted to the thing and its cliffhangers work on me. It does make some interesting points on society mind.

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