pyrajane’s review #21: The Walking Dead, Compendium 1 (The Walking Dead #1-48) by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn, Tony Moore

I hate horror.

I hate horror movies.  I can’t stand the trailers for new ones.  Horror music?  Knock it the fuck off.

I hate scary TV shows.  Don’t want anything to do with them.

I can’t stand haunted houses and the few times I let myself be talked into going into one, I’d either bail after a few steps in and walk back out the front door or I’d grab the shirt of the person in front of me, close my eyes, press my face into their back and let them lead me.   Fuck haunted houses.

Zombies?  No.  One of the worst horror creations because they eat you alive and it could be someone you know.  The smell… I can’t even.  It might be a brand new zombie or one that’s been wandering around for who knows how long.  Fuck everything about that.

I love The Walking Dead.

My husband had read the comics and when he heard AMC was creating the show, he was wicked excited.  Me?  Nope.  More than nope.  More like “Why?  Why would anyone DO that?”

He’d be watching in the other room while I was on the computer trying really hard not to listen to any sounds.

But then it got interesting.  The characters seemed cool and every single scene wasn’t a zombie biting off someone’s face.  I started wandering into the room, standing in the doorway, watching for a few minutes.  By episode four, I was very curious, but still not convinced.  Then season two started, Sophia disappeared, and I was in.

I didn’t want to read the comic because I liked being surprised and getting to know the characters through the show.  I knew the show had gone in a very different direction with the characters and the story, but I didn’t care.  I liked these people and didn’t want to know what could happen next.  My husband would point out from time to time if the book had a plot line that was more violent than what they did on the show and also that they changed the characters a lot and he liked what they did.

I got so into the show that I would watch in real time, complete with commercials because I didn’t want to wait for the DVR.  When season two ended, I was tempted to read the comic, but still didn’t want to.  Then season three ended and I waited a few months and here we are.

People might hate me for this, but I do not care: I like the show more than the comic.

Read more of my thoughts over on my blog.  

Spoilers.  Spoilers from the show.  Spoilers from the comic.

I’m not even going to try to make this anything but a huge pile of spoilers.

narfna’s #CBR5 Reviews #17-24: The Walking Dead, Vols. 1-8 by Robert Kirkman

The following is a compilation of my reviews for The Walking Dead, volumes 1-8. Full reviews can be read by clicking at the bottom of each excerpt.

(In case you don’t want to read all of my reviews, here is a catchall one for you: Robert Kirkman’s zombies are disgusting and everything is bleak as fuck. The End.)

Vol. 1 — “Days Gone Bye”

So . . . it’s interesting sometimes to re-read things. Mostly when I do this I love whatever it is just as much as before; sometimes I love it more, but in a different way, depending on how old I am, the different experiences I’ve had since my last read, etc. But this is one of the rare cases where, due to a bunch of different factors mostly involving the TV show adaptation of The Walking Dead, my re-read of its source material has been colored in a mostly negative light. I definitely remember liking this for the most part (I can never full-on love something this disgusting and depressing), but this time through I found myself annoyed with a bunch of things that I didn’t even notice the first time through.

‘Days Gone Bye’ is the first volume in the seemingly never-ending The Walking Dead comic series. It follows cop Rick Grimes as he wakes up from a coma to find the world has gone to shit while he was sleeping. His hometown is virtually abandoned and destroyed, and the whole place is covered in zombies (most often referred to as ‘those things’). Throughout the course of the story, Rick meets random survivors on his way to Atlanta to find his wife and son, but when he gets there, he finds the entire city is chock full of zombies and barely escapes with his life. Luckily, the dude who saved him leads him back to a camp of survivors that just so happens to include his wife and son, along with his ex-partner, Shane. So now he’s found his family. From there, Rick has to learn to cope with a different kind of journey — just surviving in the awful world. At the beginning, he’s hopeful and always mentioning to people ‘when things get back to normal,’ but by the end, he’s taking a more pragmatic approach. What if things never get back to normal?

Tereasa’s #CBR5 Review #1: The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman

Similar but Different

I was introduced to the TV show “The Walking Dead” through Netflix. I saw it in the recently added section, and remember reading on Pajiba.com that many thought it was excellent. I started watching episode one after dinner, then finished the season early the next morning. I was hooked.

I was able to watch season 2 last year when it finally appeared on Netflix, but I had cheated and read the recaps on Pajiba for the episodes because, well, I wasn’t patient. A common complaint for season 2 was that the comics handled it so much better. So, I added the compilation volumes to my amazon.com wish list and waited until I felt I could splurge and get one or both.