The Walking Dead, Volume 2: Miles Behind Us

The second part picks up right after where the first left off, and continues the interesting, somber tale of a pack of humans trying to survive the winter in a world taken over by zombies. I've heard the story only really gets going a little later, but I still quite enjoyed this book. The main artist for the book is different starting with this volume, but I didn't really miss a beat because the overall look is still the same, thanks to the consistent gray tones. Adlard's style is a little messy where Moore's was a little cartoony, and some of the characters are a bit harder to distinguish until you get used to it, a problem that's increased by the pretty big cast.

Kirkman isn't afraid to kill off characters, but they meet new people at a high enough rate that it always feels like there's a surplus of pending zombie victims. I don't mind the amount of people, it's just that some aren't used to their full story potential. Though given enough time, which there will probably be since there's already nearly sixty issues with no signs of stopping, there's probably going to be plenty of character development to go around. I'm not totally sold on Kirkman's writing, because fairly often the dialogue is a bit obvious and rote ("Thanks for saving us!" "No problem, anything to help out a fellow man."), but I like the main characters enough and the story seems to be headed in a really interesting direction. Most zombie fiction doesn't cover the long term effects of a plague, but I appreciate when something does.