Comic Reviews: The Walking Dead 1&2

Volume 1

15 years ago, zombies were the black sheep of the horror world.  You typically had to raid the video rental shelves for Italian movies from the 70s to see anything you hadn’t already seen a dozen times.  The list of really good subgenre films could be counted on two hands, and that was including some fringe titles like Dead Heat.  Fast forward to today, and frankly, the walking dead are kind of played out.  Too many movies, too many comics, too many TV shows.  More important, too many bad ones.  Still, when it first hit the stands, The Walking Dead was a breath of fresh…well, it was welcome.  The series was everything this zombie starved fan was hungry for.  Like the author, I had always wanted to follow the characters (those few who might survive) after the credits began to roll.  What happened to those folks on the helicopter at the end of Dawn of the Dead?  What was up with that island in Day of the Dead?  What happened to New York City after Zombie?  What would have happened to the badass reporter in Nightmare City (among other names) if he wasn’t hooked up with that idiot woman who kept complaining that everyone deserved it?  Would he have found more explosive TVs to throw?  Well, that’s what this comic was created to explore; the ‘and then…?’ factor.  Awesome.

Re-reading the first trade all these years later, I totally see what I saw in it at that time, though to tell the truth, it’s not that great.  That said, the ending is awesome, and from what I understand, that amazing moment is totally botched in the TV series, which is too bad.  It’s a defining moment in the comic, and should have been in the show as well.  It’s also weird reading it, and remembering all these characters I know won’t make it very far.  I forgot about that couple and their kids.  I forgot one dude even had a kid (shows how long she makes it).  I know there’s a lot of nasty death on its way.  Unlike many later story arcs, much of the death in this one is caused by the undead.  What makes the comic work is what makes the best zombie movies work, the drama of people in a horrible situation.  Zombies are like a natural disaster.  They don’t have a plan, they don’t have a goal, they’re not evil, they don’t want to hurt you.  They just feed on whatever is in front of them, moving without thought for self or for the future.  It is this relentless, mindless danger that makes them far more spirit crushing than many classic monsters and villains.  You can kill a dozen, a hundred, but there are always more, always coming, always lurking, like living under constant threat of bombing.  You just never know when or where, only that eventually, they will strike.

The first arc is not amazing.  Heck, the opening feels familiar for good reason, it’s been done several times (Day of the Triffids and 28 Days Later to point out two).  Heck, I even used it for an abandoned zombie novel I’d written back in the mid 90s (at the time, I was totally lifting it from the Triffids film).  And several of the relationships are pretty standard, with expected twists.  But, by the end, you start to get a sense of the left field attacks Kirkman will wage on you as the series continues; setting you up, making you feel comfortable, then kicking you in the nuts.  I’m not sure if I’m going to be reading the rest of the series (up to what, volume 18 so far?) after this or not.  But I’m tempted, even though I’m honestly kind of done with zombies for a while.

The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone By
Author: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Tony Moore
Publisher: Image
ISBN: 978-1-58240-358-8

Volume 2

Starting with a not too surprising revelation, the story picks up with the aftermath of the disastrous attack on the camp.  Our survivors must move away from Atlanta if they are to avoid the city’s roving hoards.  They meet up with new folk, run afoul of a dumbass with a gun, and find sanctuary…maybe.  The harshness of survival and the fragility of life are forefront.  And we’re still at the point in the series where the zombies seem like the real enemy.  There are hints of the human ugliness to come, but on the smallest of scales so far.  And we see the first real cracks in Rick’s armor, which author Kirkman will spend the rest of the series (as far as I’ve read) systematically destroying.  The relationships that form are interesting, as people try so hard to get a little happiness and human connection.

I’m getting a little of that feeling I had when first reading this series all those years ago, before zombies were so overplayed in books, comics, and movies.  This really is the series I dreamed of in the 90s, when I was consuming every zombie thing I could get my hands on (what little there was).  This is the kind of thing I wanted to do in a roleplaying game, when I still regularly played.  The ongoing story of survival in a world gone so horribly wrong.  And by volume 2, it feels like Kirkman is getting a better handle on things, on how the story will go and how the characters will interact.  Plus, there’s that last couple of pages, that set up the multi-volume arc that is about to begin.  That’s when the real horror, the human horror will become more obvious, when the zombies become what they’re best at being, the quiet, menacing threat that lurks in the shadows.  And when the real villains of the series step forward.

The Walking Dead: Volume 2: Miles Behind Us
Author: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Charlie Adlard
Publisher: Image
ISBN: 978-1-58240-413-4

-Matt

A Fistful of Horrific Death! (Brad's Picks)

For the month of October, we here at ITMOD are going to be dishing out Horror themed Fistful Fridays (yes, I know it's Moday.  We're gonna get back on schedule here).  First up, we're celebrating our favorite Horror Film Deaths.  And as much as I would love to show off some obscure selections I gotta be honest and go with the classics.


5.  The Head Pop (Scanners):  Stare into the void that is the gif below, gaze upon it's beauty.  Gross.  Scanners may be far from my favorite Cronenberg flick (Videodrome!  The Fly!  Eastern Promises!  So hard to choose) but you gotta bow down to that Head Pop gore effect.  Go Ironside Go!

4.  The Splinter (Zombie):  This pseudo-sequel to Dawn of the Dead was my first incursion into the brutality of Italian Giallo and I was never quite the same.  But to choose one death from this gore fest is quite tough; I had to fight the dramatic urge to choose the infamous Zombie vs. Shark sequence.  But The Splinter bit is easily the most (honestly) terrifying moment from the film.  Suspense stretched to ridiculous lengths as one of the island zombies slllllllooooooooowwwwwwwwwlllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyy drags the unfortunate maiden to her splintery doom.  Fulci definitely separates the men from the boys.

3.  The Chestburster (Alien):  Forget Rosemary's Baby, the scariest birth in cinematic history belongs to the Xenomorph bursting forth from Space Trucker Cain's chest as the crew of the Nostromo attempt to chow down on their evening meal.  I wish I could experience this for the first time every time.  I originally saw this flick when I was 11 or 12.  It was traumatizing.  Scary, scary, scary.  But it was also AWEsome.  Having now seen the film 50 times or so the AWE has dwindled a touch, but the effect is still astonishing and quite unsettling 

2.  The Jaws of Death (Jaws):  Robert Shaw's Quint has seen and survived the horrors of war, and he's developed quite a chip on his shoulder as a result.  But when he comes face to face with The Great White even the ultimate Man's Man will succumb to nature's Jaws of Death.  This was the first Death on Screen that really shook me up as a kid.  It was like watching my grandfather meet his teethy fate.  Hard to wrap my child's brain around such a horror.

1.  The Chest Mouth (The Thing):  My all time favorite straight-up, scary as hell Monster Movie.  And it's intro via Norris' not quite heat attack is still as effectively horrifying today as it was in 1982.  Rob Bottin's mastery of visual effects is the stuff of cinematic legend and deserves to be hung on a wall next to your favorite Picassos.  I'm thinking you're going to be seeing a lot of The Thing in these upcoming Fistful Fridays.  Prepare yourself.

--Brad

Lucio Fulci's Zombie Blu Ray!

When I was fourteen years old I discovered Horror films when my buddy Jason brought over a copy of Clive Barker's Hellraiser.  From there I started reading Barker's novels, Stephen King (which lead to my discovery of Stanley Kubrick via The Shining), and Richard Laymon.  Then I discovered Lucio Fulci.  And my life was forever changed.  The first film I devoured was Fulci's Zombie, the unofficial sequel to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.  Worm Eyes!  Slow Motion Eyeball Impalings!  Zombies vs Sharks!  From there it was Italian Horror all the time; the rest of my high school years were consumed with that very particular form of exploitation.  I fell in love with Gates of Hell (aka City of the Living Dead), The House By The Cemetery, and The Beyond.

Now, the good folks at Blue Underground are finally awarding us dorks with a blu ray edition of Fulci's zombie island horror and it looks utterly fantastic.  Just hearing that score sends goosebumps across my flesh. I'm gonna need to do a Fulci Movie Night at this apartment soon.  Invite all my uninformed friends over for some gooey Italian cinema.

--Brad