The Walking Dead

 

I've been a reader of The Walking Dead from Image Comics for a few years now, and I keep being surprised each issue. Now at around #82, the series has not let itself stagnate, but has evolved into an epic adventure. 

When I first started reading the series, I could honestly take it or leave it.  It was about zombies, and I'm a fan of those, but the story line and characters weren't all that interesting to me. At the beginning, the main characters were a little too Redneck Folksy for me, in a Southern "Aw, gee m'am shucks" sort of way.  They were also kind of on a moral high horse in the, "This may be the Zombie Apocalypse, but that doesn't mean we're going to..." way.  While I liked the ideas presented, I guess I didn't like how they were presented or the way the characters reacted to them. It just didn't ring true to me.

But it had zombies, so I stuck with it.

Now, over 80 issues in, I'm glad I did.  Unlike a lot of comic series where characters remain static, The Walking Dead has characters that change. Looking back at the series, they have changed in a way that now does ring true.  They've evolved, and The Walking Dead is not so much a survival horror story, but a character driven ensemble piece that just happens to take place during the Zombie Apocalypse.  This probably has a lot to do with the fact that series creator Robert Kirkman is still at the helm, guiding and changing the story and characters.  Quite often in comics, writers and editors come and go, and with nobody having a 'master game plan' they begin to lose it or go off in bad directions. They die on the vine.

The Walking Dead has yet to do that though. It's evolved into a great ongoing story, with interesting three dimensional characters. With the increased popularity of the comic, Image has been releasing graphic novels compiling everything that has come before, and I believe they've also begun reprinting the previous comics on a weekly basis.

I've talked to some people who refuse to start reading the series over fears that it will ruin the hit AMC TV show, the TV series has already gone its own way from the comic series, and I'd recommend any fan of AMC's The Walking Dead to pick up a couple back issues or graphic novels of The Walking Dead and see what it's all about.