The Walking Dead, Volume 15: We Find Ourselves

Either the book has started to just throw new characters into the story without properly introducing them first (valid given the current situation in the plot), or I'm forgetting some of them in the time it takes for a new volume to come out. My guess is that it's the latter, and that's probably just the reality of reading a comic while it's still coming out, but only in the trade paperback collections. I think part of it though is that things are a bit muddled at this point. There are a whole lot of living characters right now, possibly more than there's ever really been at any point, at least only counting ones that have been given names and things to do. And none of them are really doing that much. There's a bit of a struggle in this volume between some people, but it's over quickly and doesn't have any real consequences. There's very little threat from zombies, either... they're out there, but there's nothing major. It's just sort of a transitional part of the story, taking place shortly after some major events and presumably setting up others. But it's a little underwhelming when it's the only stuff I've read in a few months and I won't read any more for another few. So, yeah. It's fine, there's nothing wrong about it, but at this point it's inessential.

The Walking Dead, Volume 14: No Way Out

Recent volumes of this book have really pushed the idea that when the world is overrun by zombies, other people are just as dangerous as they are. But No Way Out really brought back the threat of the zombies themselves in a big way. The good guys are surrounded on all sides yet again, and as can be predicted, some seriously messed up stuff happens as they fight to survive. It's at the point in the book that I really can't bring myself to care about anyone anymore, because Rick is literally the only character that I don't think Kirkman would be willing to kill, if only because he's the lens through which most of the story is shown. And he's done too much out of self interest at this point to let me think of him as a real hero at this point. He's just a good survivor. I read not because I hope the characters will see things through, but out of a certain morbid interest in what the next awful moment will be. This book had a few of them, and there was little I could do besides chuckle in disbelief as I saw them come to pass. This was an extremely violent book (they usually are), but for whatever reason it hit home just how good the book is at throwing tons of horrific imagery at you. I can see how someone without empathy and a passion for monster movies could love the hell out of it. As it is, I manage to enjoy it quite a bit.

The Walking Dead, Volumes 7-13

Partly thanks to actually having an income, I have read more of The Walking Dead than I have in the last couple months than I did in the last couple years. Having 42 issues to talk about rather than only six doesn't actually leave me with that much more to talk about, because I'd rather avoid going to much into the details of the plot as usual. Suffice it to say that zombies are still everywhere, and people die just as quickly as they are introduced. Part of what I like about this rotating cast is that that it allows the dynamic of the group to change greatly over time. I'm currently working my way through the British TV series MI-5, and while I appreciate how they're willing to change up the cast frequently, it's pretty obvious when a new character is dropped into an old one's basic niche without it actually changing the show's formula too much. But the new blood in The Walking Dead definitely changes the story, and it's interesting to watch relationships evolve with time. Also, these volumes really dug deep into the idea of humanity being the real danger in a world where society has been destroyed, even more than the earlier stories, and that stuff tends to be much more chilling and depressing than any regular horror story can. But while the series works well as a study of humanity in an extreme setting, I don't think I'll ever count it among my favorite comics because there just isn't enough of a plot for me to really get invested in. Live goes on for these people until they die, and the book seems like it will go on in much the same way until it ends. I'll stick with it for a while though, at least.

The Walking Dead, Volume 6: This Sorrowful Life

So. Yeah. This book is pretty messed up. Main characters have been disfigured. Many people have been killed, both by zombies and their fellow survivors. Just lots of bad things have happened. The worst part just might be the faint glimmer of hope, the straggling belief that things might change, the optimism that new life can be started while it's ending all around them. Lots of stories try to sell the idea that no character is safe, but I believe it with The Walking Dead more than almost anything else. It's impossible to feel good for the characters living in this world. You just keep reading to find out how it's going to go bad. Pure nihilism in comic book form. But despite some continued over-explanatory dialogue, it's mostly well written, and the art is very effective at showing you something you'd never want to see. It's an achievement to make something so joyless so easily readable. And hey, the TV show is really coming along too. They've showed images of the main character and the zombies, both look good. I don't know how far they're going to take it, but I have a lot of faith in AMC.

The Walking Dead, Volume 5: The Best Defense

I know I said they were filming a pilot for a series already, but apparently that was just preliminary stuff, and now they're actually going to do it. Robert Kirkman likes Frank Darabont's script, and I'm intrigued to see if it gets picked up for a series. Still got a lot of catching up to do with the book though. This was possibly the best volume yet, and again, it had little to do with zombies. The whole crisis is definitely getting to some people, as what seemed to be solid friendships break down and a few seem close to really cracking. The biggest thing though was the introduction of what is really the story's first significant villain, and he sure is a bastard. Say what you will about the undead and their flesh-eating ways, they aren't sadistic and creepy like this guy is. It's almost too over the top even for a post zombie apocalypse tale, but in a way I do believe that that environment could create a person like that. It's pretty brutal stuff, and I'm definitely going to keep my reading spread out like I have, because it's a fascinating setting but not one that's easy to visit. I knew it was only a matter of time before the zombies became only part of the problem, but I've never seen man's own inhumanity just thrown at me so effectively.

The Walking Dead, Volume 4: The Heart's Desire

I just realized that if you put the different volumes of the Walking Dead trade paperbacks side by side, the zombies along the bottom of the covers form a continuous mural, with small gaps. It sort of blew my mind. Eventually the story's going to be too long to see all of them together unless you have a big hallway somewhere, though. This volume turned out to be a pretty significant turn in the story, and the hordes of undead hardly even played into it. They were a a catalyst for some upheaval among the survivors, but the spark that lit the fire really had nothing to do with them. It's nice to see that not all of the conflict will come from the constant threat of being eaten by mindless corpses, and in fact it seems that they may not even be what the story is really about. It's about how people deal with having their world destroyed utterly, and how they come together or turn against each other under unending stress. The story's not as emotionally affecting as it could be, because it's not the easiest thing to keep every single character and their feelings straight, and the rate of attrition among them is so high that it's pretty easy to just not get attached. It's definitely an intriguing story, though.

The Walking Dead, Volume 3: Safety Behind Bars

The third volume continues the story in very much the same manner, as Rick and his band of weary survivors keep up the struggle to live in a world overrun by zombies. The cast continues to grow and shrink at the same time, with some getting killed as fast as others are discovered. This one takes place mostly in a nearly abandoned prison, which at first seems to be a safe haven but turns out to be more dangerous than they thought, and not only because of the undead. It continues to be an interesting, depressing story, not one that I'm in love with but one that I can't stop pursuing. It's kind of hard to write these, because without getting into story specifics there isn't that much different from book to book - zombies are everywhere, couples come together and fall apart, and people die. The winter is thawing, and the fact that the world is clearly continuing despite the relentless danger of living in the land of the dead is one of the comic's most successfully unsettling aspects. There's just no end to it. AMC is going to film a pilot for a series based on it, which I'm sort of ambivalent towards. A legitimate, long term series based on a zombie apocalypse is pretty cool, but I'm not sure if they can do it justice on that channel. It will be neat to see them try, though.

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.

The Walking Dead, Volume 1: Days Gone Bye

The Walking Dead does a very good job in its first volume of setting itself up as a slightly different take on the standard "zombies destroy civilization" storyline. Most movies and stories focus on showing the outbreak as it happens, and end as the lonely group of survivors that they've been following buy it not too long after. The Walking Dead doesn't show the initial event at all, with the main character being comatose in the hospital as it happens, and portends to be a much longer term look at what could happen to survivors as constantly living in fear wears on them. I obviously can't see that too much in just the first six issues, but what's here is effective.

There's a lot of set up as the main character Rick comes to terms with how the world's changed as he tries to track down his wife and son and joins a camp of survivors living outside Atlanta. They do various things, some smart and others not so much to survive, and we learn some about the specifics of Kirkman's zombies - they differentiate between themselves and humans by smell, and mostly act like traditional Romero ones. There's some family drama that happens to go along with the normal threat from the undead, and it seems like he really has a plan already about what he wants to do with the story. The art by Tony Moore is really good, both stylized and detailed in a way that makes it simple fun to look at, although the slightly cartoony faces might not totally match the tone of the comic, and he does get replaced by the next volume. Well done, interesting book with potential.