The Walking Dead is Dark, But Compelling (Archive)

I'll get this off my chest up front - I'm not really a big zombie genre person. Films like Romero's Dawn of the Dead and your classic zombie subject matter material aren't high on my list. Now, I don't hate this stuff, but I am surprised that I have latched on to Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead" series from Image Comics. The title makes no bones about it: we've got zombies. LOTS of zombies. Perhaps I just have a subconscious fascination with apocalyptic type stories (which would explain my love of Brian K Vaughn's "Y: The Last Man") but one thing is certain- I can't get enough of this story.

Allow me to set the scene: Its modern day and Rick Grimes wakes up alone and confused in a hospital bed. He quickly realizes something is wrong and it may be the mindless rotting corpses walking around trying to eat him, but something is amiss. He quickly realizes that it isn't just the hospital that is overflowing with "monsters", the whole city and perhaps world are dealing with a catastrophic situation of completely unprecedented scale!

Skip ahead. Rick escapes the city, finds his wife and young son and bands together with some other "survivors" and they begin wandering the countryside looking for safety and others who may remain. The similarities shared with "Y" are abundant, but where Y is more adventurous in tone and more of a running social commentary, The Walking Dead takes a more intimate focus on interpersonal relationships and how the psyche deals with and processes traumatic experience. And every few pages you get a fair helping of zombie killing, including shooting them and hacking them down with shovels and hatchets. Its a fairly graphic comic!

The prospects for the future are bleak and no news from the greater outside world ever seems to reach our wandering band of survivors and so not surprisingly with death in all quarters, this is a dark comic. Very dark! Yet, it wasn't until I read the fifth trade paperback that realized just how morbid it can get. A new character is introduced who is an embodiment of evil, inhuman capabilities and utter fascination. Its the same kind of character exposition that made Hannibal Lector such an intriguing character, but The Governor, as he is called, is a wholly individual character all his own. I guess I equate him with some of most brutal dictators of the 20th century. No question he is mad, a damaged man who is simply incapable of normal function in a psychological sense.

For me as a reader the question arises as to whether or not this man was simply like this from the beginning or rather his behavior is the result of psychological trauma. Perhaps we will never have it fully explained, but even so, the ideas that this story brings into perspective are impressive nonetheless making The Walking Dead a compelling and engaging read. At first I was tempted to simply dismiss it as mindless violence and gore for the sake of violence and gore. The more I read, however, the more it becomes evident that Kirkman is touching on deeper themes and is weaving a tragic story that reaches out and pulls you in. As I said earlier, the biggest themes are how the human mind finds a way to survive in the face of dauntless odds and the intricacies of human relationships including interpersonal, familial and communal.

I didn't fully appreciate the art work at first either. It seemed very minimalist in the first book (very similar to 100 Bullets) and has changed with the artists along the way, but I have come to greatly appreciate how the utilization of shading creates depth which in turn reflects the tones of the story and expertly conveys the emotion. They also make great use of perspective throughout, framing scenes in ways that break from the norm. It works in adding scale and detail to the world in which the characters find themselves.

I am proof that you don't have to be a zombie aficionado to appreciate The Walking Dead. While it may not always seem like, there is more to the story that simply chopping up and shooting hordes of undead. If you are looking for an interesting, shocking and compelling comic, this title comes fully recommended. Its extremely dark, but a fascinating character study.