After reading The Walking Dead Compendium 1 (that's issues #1-#48), I was inspired to think about the "generic" status of the "zombie apocalypse" genre. It struck me as a very interesting, liminal genre that isn't quite a fantasy, isn't quite a science fiction, and isn't quite a supernatural horror. If you're interested, here's the post: Defining the Zombie Apocalypse
There's lots more to be said about this interesting issue. And yet--I wanted to do something a little less abstract today.
I want to review The Walking Dead issues #1-#48, something useful for a change. I want to make a case for why you should invest in a copy of the compendium and take the time to read it.
But first, a brief reflection about my relationship with comic books...
I've never been much of a comic enthusiast. I guess this is because the image and character of the super hero never stirred me. I don't know why. I can't say why.
There's nothing about the over-the-top hyper-masculine hero with super powers that I find intrinsically distasteful (hell, one of my favorite characters of all time is Conan of Cimmeria--a kind of "superhero," although he doesn't have super powers).
I just couldn't get into Spiderman or the X-Men or Superman. The comics I read when I did read them were more D&D or sword and sorcery derivative: The Savage Sword of Conan, Conan the Barbarian (Marvel); and The Warlord (DC) were and still are my favorites (I have a fair collection of them).
Once I started graduate school, some friends of mine who shared my genre interests introduced me to what they described more "artistic" comic books, which folks tended to call "graphic novels": Alan Moore's The Watchmen, Charles Burns Black Hole.
Sidenote: I think this term, the "graphic novel" is kind of funny. It's my sense that the term "graphic novel" is meant to portray the idea of these work's aspiration towards artistic seriousness. Historically, of course, novel, was a kind of artistic pejorative word, detonating a type of colloquial writing in contrast to verse. It's a kind of "validating term" enthusiasts use in order to claim some artistic credibility. Science fiction enthusiasts do a similar move when they refer to their favorite genre as "extrapolative fiction" or "speculative fiction."
My favorite validating term for comics term is "sequential art," which connotes the theoretical and formal.
And now, my review of The Walking Dead...
Long story short: I was first introduced to The Walking Dead as a graphic novel. Little did I know, it was actually a monthly comic and what I had been given was a compendium of many issues.
This is where I'd like to begin: reminding folks that Walking Dead: Compendium 1 is not a single novel. It wasn't written, I don't think, as an overarching narrative (I could be wrong--this is a critic's hunch).
It feels as if the narrative unfolds as you read it. In other words, it seems to respond and adapt to previous events. You get the sense you get with other serialized narratives (I'm thinking of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) that the writers are exploring and tracing characters, subplots, and scenarios as you are reading.
With that said, there's a quality to The Walking Dead I'd like to call "narrative vitality." The story seems alive. What do I mean by this? Well, as I read, I don't get the sense that the writers know precisely where the narrative is going, i.e. whose going to live, what's going to happen. I find this as the primary source of the narrative's pleasure. Often times, when you turn the page and are surprised to see one of your favorite characters (who you thought was a main character) being eaten by zombies, you get the sense that the writers were just as surprised as you.
The narrative is just great. It possesses a kind of adaptability, as if at the end of each issue the writers had no idea what was going to happen. And, more importantly, they seem to have been open to the development of any scenario. This is what keeps you reading, this idea that anything could happen.
O.k.. Enough about narrative. What about the style?
I'm not as qualified to discuss in any substantial way visual art. I just don't have the vocabulary for the conceptual tools. With that said, let's give it a try!
First off, the art does change throughout the compendium. They change artists. From issues #1 to #6 the artist is Tony Moore; and at issue #7 the artist changes and becomes Charlie Adlard.
I really like Moore's artwork; however, I absolutely prefer Adlard's. There's something visceral and dark about Adlard's work that conforms so wonderfully to the dark world related by the comic book. I would describe Adlard's work as beautifully manipulating dark and light shapes. It's tends towards "evocative two dimensionality," I think, and relies less on shading and more on high contrasts between black and white. It's so interesting.
Summary: if you like the AMC show, The Walking Dead, I highly recommend you read this, the comic that inspires it. It's just as mature and exciting and intriguing as the show; at times, it much more intense than the show. The Walking Dead is a comic book at it's best.
It beautifully probes how the struggle to survive intensifies and modifies our sometimes dark, sometimes inspiring, human nature.
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