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The Walking
Dead?
So we have a TV show, a hit TV show, based
on a comic book that many would assume is a
hit comic book, and for all intents and
purposes, it is indeed a hit.
But what do
we learn from said hit TV Show?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Let’s start from the top
here.
The Walking
Dead is an Image comic book that just about
everyone who has read comics knows about.
Everyone has seen it on the shelf. Most of
us have even read an issue or 75. Most of us
have seen the difference in art between
Charlie Adlard and the original artist Tony
Moore. |
Most of
us were there when the first issue came out and
didn’t buy it because we didn’t think anything of it
and now we kick ourselves every single day for not
buying the damn thing. And now, because there is a
hit TV show out there, everyone seems to know it.
Everyone seems to be in on this hit show. Well,
where the hell were they when the comic started?
Here’s
my rage this week as we lead into the upcoming
finale of the biggest show to hit cable television
in ever. When a show like this becomes huge, people
try to act like they’ve been in on it since the
beginning. Pick your favorite band and someone will
say they’ve liked them since the beginning. And
they’ll mean it, but they might be poseurs.
Pick
your favorite movie or TV show and it’s the same
thing.
But
unless you’re a comic book fan, most people won’t
come up to you and act like they’re the world’s
biggest fan of that comic. But now that we have this
comic and TV show, there will be those people,
shopping at Hot Topic, who will tell you that
they’ve been big fans forever.
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Or at least
since the show started. I will say this.
I didn’t get in on the ground floor. I
waited until issue 6 and bought the
first printing of the first trade
paperback (which is what normal comic
fans call them, not graphic novels), and
I only bought that because Tony Moore is
a local artist (or at least, used to be)
and he’s something of a legend.
So I bought
it. And loved it.
Then I
remembered comics that I had from Robert
Kirkman that I had bought before this
ever came out. Battle Pope. Stuff like
that. I met him and Tony at a Wizard
World Comic Con way before Walking Dead
started. I even bought a damn Battle
Pope T-shirt and a few comics because
they were pushing one of my favorite
comics at the time, Code Flesh, written
by Joe Casey and drawn by Charlie Adlard
(which had a crazy comic called Rex
Mantooth written by Matt Fraction and
drawn by Andy Kuhn, look it up). |
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I can
say these things because I’ve been reading comics
for almost 20 years now. I’ve seen the ebbs and
flows and I’ve seen the worst and the best. I was
there when Marvel Comics was bankrupt and I was
there when DC was bankrupt for ideas. I’ve been
through it all. The speculator market (which my next
post will be about) nearly killed comics. Comics
pulled back because of us geeks and us nerds and us
legion of fans who will never give up on our
favorite comic characters.
I’m not
upset by the fact that pop culture has taken comics
and made them a genre that can be mined and mined
and mined and mined and mined until the end. Until
there is nothing left but someone’s favorite comic
character that no one else likes, like Mangog or Dr.
Fate or Creech. Once those characters movies are
made, I’d love to hear that one singular fan
screaming from the heavens that Mangog is in fact
his favorite character, and I’d love to watch that
fan beat to death the other person who claims that
they are also the biggest fan of the character.
That’s
the problem. The biggest problem with comics.
Because they are now a big part of pop culture,
people will tell you, to your face, that they are
bigger fans of the comic than you are. And lo and
behold, comics are like everything else. They are
like pop music, rock music, rap music, movies,
books, mythology and everything else. They are just
like everything else. And they are comics. That’s
another thing. Comics. Not graphic novels. Comics.
Comic books. Trade paperbacks. Hardcover collections
of your favorite comics. When someone says based on
the acclaimed graphic novels, I cringe quite a bit.
| If I was
the world-famous creator of said comic
The Walking Dead, my screen credit would
be from the COMIC SERIES The Walking
Dead. Because that’s what it is. A
series. An ongoing comic book series
that comes out monthly and features the
writing of Robert Kirkman and the art of
Charlie Adlard. The trade paperbacks and
hard covers are collections of the comic
series. Nothing more. So the next time
you’re at the mall and some idiot tells
you that they are the biggest fan of The
Walking Dead and they just bought the
first graphic novel after seeing a
mini-marathon on AMC, you can punch them
in the face. |
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Because
they weren’t there. They didn’t go to their favorite
comic shop and get the issue before it sold out.
They didn’t go to every comic con and try and haggle
with the retailer on what they’re trying to sell a
first printing of the first issue of the comic for.
That’s
what a fan does. A fan goes to comic conventions. A
fan talks to retailers. A fan goes out of his way to
stick beside his favorite comic book series, in
spite of threats of cancellations, in spite of
creative changes, and tells the world all about
them.
A fan
also doesn’t wait until something is extremely
popular before they go and tell the world how
they’re the biggest fan. That’s called a poseur.
A fan
will tell you all about the amazing comics that are
out there that he loves. Thor The Mighty Avenger.
RASL. Bone. Madman. Unknown Soldier. Scalped.
X-Factor. X-Men Legacy. Amazing Spider-man. The list
goes on and on. And I will continue telling you
about them.
Because
that’s what a fan does.
