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You Should Be Reading: The Walking Dead
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Location: Blogs Atomic FalloutCritical Mass |
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| Posted by: Jake Bell |
Thursday, June 28, 2007 12:02 PM |
If you have not yet discovered writing sensation Robert Kirkman yet, it’s high time that you rectify that situation. Kirkman has written several intelligent, entertaining, and gratifying books that lie just below the mainstream radar including the superhero yarn Invincible, the parody Battle Pope, and dipping his toe into the commercial, Ultimate X-Men, and Marvel Zombies. All these books deserve more of an endorsement than I am giving them here, and are certainly worth a flip through next time you hit up your local shop.
As good as these titles are, The Walking Dead does them one better. I put off reading it for quite a while categorizing it as a horror/zombie book which I was not, and truthfully, am not interested in. However, on the recommendation of those whose opinions I value highly, I picked up the first trade.
It is apparent from the first page that The Walking Dead is much more than a zombie book that relies heavily on the terror and gratuitous violence to enthrall a reader. In fact, there are times when you forget that the zombies are even part of the story. Of course, that is when they pop up unexpectedly and reiterate how tenuous the characters grasp on their lives. The story focuses on a small group of survivors led by Rick, a small town cop turned survivalist-cowboy, and never strays far from their thoughts and emotions. As much as I hate to use what has become a cliché in reviews for comic books these days, Kirkman deals with the characters in a way that seems logical and realistic – though, sensationalized for audience pleasure. It also transcends its base zombie roots to become enjoyable for comic book fans of all kinds.
Each character is-–heh–-fleshed out and resists being the walking stereo-or-archetype that has been pounded into our–-hah-–brains from any Hollywood movie you’ve ever seen. The characters aren’t reduced to screaming, spineless, running, food. In fact, most of the drama occurs between the still living characters and not the threat of the zombies themselves. More of the survivors have been killed by their own, being driven insane by the duress of living in a world populated with the dead, than have been killed by zombies throughout the whole of the book. Kirkman has taken an exhausted genre, zombies, and turned it into something fresh and new (Which he actually does again with Marvel Zombies, focusing on their inimitable perpective. Novel!). After picking up the first trade, I went back and bought the rest of the run and read it in its entirety the next day. What’s not to like? You have regular folk who have risen to a unique occasion and forged out a living – family, drama, friendships, rivalry, and everything that goes with. There’s also regular folk hitting zombies in the dome with claw hammers, the living forced to fight for the entertainment of the masses, a mysterious lawyer/samurai, people clamoring to get into prison, and a host of other-–somebody stop me--enticing morsels that you’ll just eat up!
In fact, my only qualm with the book is its addictive quality. Barring any tampering with nicotine in the ink, I would say that it comes from Kirkman’s uncanny ability to write a compelling cliffhanger at the end of each issue. A master of suspense, Kirkman begins each issue with the resolution of the previous issue, then proceeds to get you emotionally invested in the story, then--WHAM!--shocking conclusion. If you don’t believe me, pick up the first trade, it’s $9.99. That’s how they hook you my friend, with the cheapness. It’s actually the fact that the book is in black and white which, far from being off-putting actually enhances the feel of the book not unlike a 1950’s horror flick. Black and white = low printing cost = more happy funness for you! It won’t cost you-–I just punched myself in the face-–an arm and a leg, and it’s one of the most enjoyable books I’ve had the pleasure of reading.
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