I think AMC has expressed an enormous amount of faith in Robert Kirkman’s award winning critically acclaimed comic book series “The Walking Dead” by taking it seriously and investing in to it as they would a normal drama or thriller series. Kirkman’s black and white horror comic about the zombie apocalypse and the man trying to find his wife and son in the middle of it is possibly my favorite comic book series ever made, and AMC has treated it with dignity and respect. Any other network may have toned down the violence, and made it much sleeker and action oriented, but director Frank Darabont manages to treat this series with the same character study and emotion as he has with masterpieces like “The Green Mile,” and “The Shawshank Redemption” where the supernatural element is much more secondary to the human story. Deep down “The Walking Dead” is actually a human story with much of the tone from the series transplanted on to a full color epic television scope and while it is different from the series it is also very loyal to Kirkman’s original concept and even lifts some scenes from the original first issue.
Tag Archives: The Walking Dead
The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology [Paperback]
Christopher Golden assembles a myriad of assorted tales about the walking dead, all of which combine to form one of the strongest combinations of excellent authors and variations on zombies and the undead. While the entire book isn’t a complete success in adapting visions of the walking dead with engrossing characters, “The New Dead” will make a great time filler with some truly strong stories and mini-epics in one compendium. I had a great time sifting through each story and I think most fans of the walking dead will, too. These are only a few of the ones we thought warranted mentioning.
For the first story John Connelly offers up his twist on the Lazarus pit with “Lazarus” the story of a man who dies and is kept in a cave only to be brought back to life a few days later thanks to the will of his loved ones. When he discovers he’s completely lost his place in a world he’s left, he longs for death in the face of loved ones he barely recognizes anymore. Connolly’s writing is vivid and awfully sad and makes for an interesting look at the undead in more tragic form.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War [Hardcover]
I’m one of the few horror buffs across the board who have yet to read the 2003 cult book “The Zombie Survival Guide.” So back in 2006 when author Max Brooks released his highly publicized and promoted sequel entitled “World War Z,” I jumped at the chance and actually shelled out the dough to read his latest tome rather than borrow it from a friend or from a library as I typically did in the past. As a rule I don’t usually read zombie fiction because most of the time it’s usually just material that attempts to drastically re-invent the zombie sub-genre by reducing them to nothing but monsters, or more so turning them in to gimmicky creatures easily forgotten. Sue me but I grew up on Romero’s zombie films and admittedly I’ve been spoiled by his films.
For about as far back as I could remember I have been absolutely horrified of zombies. From horror comedies to zombie masterpieces, no matter what form they were in, I shuddered at the mere thought of them. My imagination did more than fill in the holes with the zombie movies I’ve heard of before I actually copped to watching them. I spent many a late nights thinking about zombies creeping up from beside my bed or pulling me down in to my mattress, and I avoided them for a long time. They petrify me. So as my resistance to them grew stronger, I managed to embrace the fear, and after a while I began to seek out all forms of zombie media, even indulging in some zombie fiction of my own.
My Name is Felix and I'm a Kinemortophobe
Acrophobia, Nictophobia, Mysophobia, and Kinemortophobia. These are my primary phobias that plague me day in and day out. But… mainly that last one has been a nagging more insane but very troublesome phobia that has grabbed on to me since I was old enough to walk and hasn’t let go. Kinemortophobia (or Ambulothanatophobia) can be described as fear of the undead, or more importantly fear of the walking dead. Sure to some of you, it may sound idiotic and something to laugh at, but when you’re a little kid trying to sleep unable to go five minutes without looking behind you or sleeping near the edge of your bed, it’s not funny. And it’s quite traumatic. No, this is not meant to be a satirical article, this is quite real to me. I simply can not explain it. I’ve tried to figure out why since I was a child, but I simply can not explain it. I have a fear of zombies. Not vampires, or mummies, or anything else undead, but specifically zombies. The walking dead, the brain munching, gut gnawing, glazed over, staggering, shambling, moaning, groaning, mobile, green skinned, mouths agape, oozing, bleeding, rotting monsters that have become so absolutely prevalent in modern death obsessed pop culture.
Zombieland (2009)
It’s been precisely five years since the UK tossed “Shaun of the Dead” in to the American shores and so successful was it with fans that most of America’s directors (both independent and mainstream) have tried anxiously to deliver what the “Spaced” clan have. Along the way the after effect of the movie brought us some good clones (Fido) and some just purely awful (The Mad) and the quest to create our own version of what Edgar Wright gave us hasn’t ended, not by a long shot. So here we are again five years later and we finally have a movie that works along “Shaun of the Dead’s” tone while paving its own signature in the horror comedy subgenre.
The Walking Dead #54
And so we enter in to our new storyline involving three new characters and… I’m pleased. Thanks to pulling some strings with fellow comic freak Brian Pittman on Cinema crazed I was able to read Issue 54 without a problem and as stated, I’m pleased about where it’s going because the series was kind of in a rut when last we met our dwindling group of survivors. What will happen now that two survivors have showed up at the farm? Are they enemies or allies? And How far will ths struggle proved to go now that their xenophobia has provided the group with understandable but extremely paranoid situations?
The Walking Dead #53
Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you seriously jerking me around Kirkman? The final splash is all one big tease, right? It has to be. These three new characters would say anything to be let in to the farm and I believe it. This series was originally called “Night of the Living Dead” and we only had an inkling of what may have caused the dead uprising in that movie, and one possible explanation. There’s no way Kirkman would explain and hold our hands through why the dead suddenly started rising one day.