Walking Dead volume 1: Days Gone Bye

By Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore (Image)
ISBN: 978-1-58240-672-5

In advance of the television debut and sarcastically smug in the knowledge that at least one American University is now offering Zombie Studies as part of its curriculum, I think it’s about time that I turned my winnowing gaze on the most critically successful comicbook on the subject of the restless and infinitely hungry horrors that have recently captivated the global imagination.

The Walking Dead began in 2003 as an unassuming black and white monthly from Image Comics, once a cooperative of comics media darlings that has since evolved into a welcome clearing house of good ideas and different concepts that bigger publishers are too commercially timid to risk releasing. Writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore took the tried and trusted format pioneered by George A. Romero in his 1968 satirical shocker Night of the Living Dead, and stripped it of its sensationalistic brutality and anti-war sub-text, producing a very human and scarily passionate exploration of human nature under extreme and sustained duress.

In that light if zombie invasions are a metaphor for Life During Wartime then Walking Dead is more about civilians than soldiers and explores the Spirit of the Blitz rather than the last ditch heroics of Dunkirk or the Alamo.

The series has won many awards and, since 2004, been collected into numerous editions including 13 trade paperbacks each containing six issues, six deluxe hardbacks with a dozen issues each and bonus material, three omnibus editions with two years of material in each and even a Compendium volume containing the first 48 issues. There’s even a book of covers planned but I don’t know if that’s out yet… Being an old purist with weak wrists, I’m plumping for the very first trade edition for this graphic novel review.

Rural Kentucky cop Rick Grimes is shot whilst apprehending a rampaging felon with his friend and deputy Shane. He awakes from a coma in a deserted hospital littered with dead bodies and, whilst weakly making his way outside, discovers that not all the corpses are staying dead.

Chased by aggressively hungry but slow-moving zombies in various stages of decomposition Rick flees town and makes his way to the family home. His wife and son are missing but before he can search he is overwhelmed by Morgan Jones and his little boy Duane, fugitives from the undead plague which has overwhelmed the entire planet.

They bring Rick – and us – up to speed on the situation, explaining how to kill the monsters and relating all the news on the creatures that was broadcast before the media outlets were overrun. Most importantly, they reveal that uninfected humans have been advised to relocate to major cities. Knowing his wife had family in Atlanta, Rick tools up with weapons and supplies from the police station and sets off after his missing loved ones – even though Morgan clearly prefers to take his chances out in the wilds…

Experiencing all manner of sedate horrors Rick eventually reaches the big city but the scene is one of desolate carnage. The zombies are everywhere and when he is surrounded his own death looks certain until he is rescued by Glenn, a young man scavenging supplies for a small band of survivors hidden outside the city.

Shocks come thick and fast when the Rick finds wife Lori, son Carl and former deputy Shane are all part of the disparate group. They have been roughing it in a camp formed of assorted motor vehicles, living off the land, and waiting to be rescued or killed.

Also, something significant has happened between Shane and Lori…

Tensions amongst the survivors build as cold weather encroaches, resources diminish and the erratically wandering zombies gradually close in on the camp. Moreover, the unspoken friction between Rick, Lori and Shane is inexorably building and after an unusually heavy assault that kills two of their number results in a bitterly tragic climax…

Despite the trappings of dark, bloody horror, this is a series about humanity: its foibles, frailnesses, fallibilities and formidable resilience. Ancient anxieties such as ravenous unreasoning monsters rub alongside more modern bogeymen such as fear of the disease, and all the sins of humanity still plague the dwindling humans in this supremely underplayed gem, especially in Tony Moore’s deceptively comforting clean lined art; subversively enhancing the ghastly situation with quiet power and smooth grey-tone embellishments.

Whatever format you prefer this distinctly different horror show is one that will take your breath away and leave you so very hungry foe more…

© 2005, 2006 Robert Kirkman. All Rights Reserved.