Comic Info
Comic Name: The Walking Dead
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Tony Moore
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2006
The Walking Dead #1
Reprints The Walking Dead #1-6 (October 2003-March 2004). Rick Grimes is shot in the line of duty and falls into a coma. When he wakes up he finds the world is a changed place. Zombies now walk the land and his family has disappeared. Putting his hope in that his family has gone to Atlanta, Rick finds more danger in the city. When Rick is found by another survivor named Glenn, Rick learns that his wife and son are alive…but his former partner Shane might not be happy about his return.
Written by Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye is an Image Comics horror comic book collection. Illustrated by Tony Moore, the series was released to critical acclaim and became a quick success. Issues in this volume were also collected as The Walking Dead Omnibus—Volume 1 and The Walking Dead Compendium—Volume 1 along with multiple reprints.
The story of The Walking Dead is quite compelling, but very derivative. The beginning of The Walking Dead is virtually identical to the beginning of 28 Days Later, which actually ripped off Day of the Triffids…so it is doubly un-original. Fortunately, Kirkman takes the story in a different direction by pushing the family, and since it is an ongoing series, it has to keep finding new ways to evolve.
The Walking Dead #6
The art for The Walking Dead is good, but not great. It is a black-and-white comic and I would love to see it in color (plus that would give Image another way to repackage them). The black-and-white is good enough that I can image how gruesome with color…blood and guts flying.
The Walking Dead‘s characters are kind of generic. For this book, there are far too many introduced, but as the series goes on, it allows them to evolve. The Shane-Lori-Rick storyline could have been developed more (the TV series at least realizes the potential of this story).
With the TV series hitting its stride, fans should go back and check out the original series. The stories are similar enough that a person who watches the show could enjoy it and still find the storylines original enough that it doesn’t feel like rehash. The Walking Dead already has almost one hundred issues…that is plenty of Walking Dead for fans that can’t get enough. The Walking Dead 1: Days Gone Bye was followed by The Walking Dead 2: Miles Behind Us.
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