The governor in the books is the freaking devil. I completely now understand the hatred between him and Michonne. The original pitch for the comics was a follow-up to horror legend George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.But, it was suggested to develop an original concept that spawned the modern story we know and love today. I had no clue that the books to this were so much different than the show. You have some completely different characters and different endings for so many of the characters.

The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman | Goodreads The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman | Goodreads

Morgan is outside chopping wood. Then he comes in and talks to Duane. They talk and Morgan gives Duane a game boy for Christmas since they don't know the exact date. He tells Duane to conserve his batteries because they are hard to find. He then talks to Duane about paying for everything they "stole" to survive. He says sorry because the thoughts are sad and he should not be talking about this stuff but Duane didn't pay attention because he was playing his game. He then says Merry Christmas to Duane.My favorite television series The Walking Dead is not like that. I read the first compendium of the comix it was based on to see if they were like that. They are not. They are full of rich post-traumatic goodness. Er, badness. This is about people who are so messed up by the zombie apocalypse that you realize the title may really be referring to them. A good thing about The Walking Dead, if you want to enjoy it in comic books along with TV series is that both storylines are different, sure there will be connecting points here and there, and you will meet the same names of characters (in some cases) but they aren’t the same persons, and trust me, while this is my first compendium in the comic book’s storyline, I have been watching the TV series since its own beginning, and both stories are different, both truly great, but different, so don’t afraid of spoilers in any of both formats, since the events are developed quite different. You may think of the “other storyline” of any format, comic books or TV series, as “the road not taken”. And of course, it will always be about that one Capistrano Birds song. This volume is so good that Daryl's absence wasn't even conspicuous, even though I missed his presence.

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard - Waterstones

I’m now going to turn your attention towards the epilogue chapter at the end of the fourth compendium. This time jump, of perhaps twenty years, resulted in another character being greatly disrespected. Maggie Green was one of the most interesting players from the very beginning. She had a slow burn character arch, and still came out of it on top. Before the time jump, she loved her adopted daughter Sophia and biological son Herschel equally. Like George Romero, creator of the iconic Living Dead movies, Kirkman has a lot to say about American culture as well. At first, his message seems tailored to the individualist doomsday prep mindset: "In a world ruled by the dead, we are finally forced to start living." I have a hard time believing that a post-apocalyptic world is better than one with readily accessible food and medical care. But there is something to be said for self-reliance. I have nothing but admiration for people who can build their own houses (I can handle basic maintenance, but that's about it).

Oh. My. God. I can't even. My feels are completely broken after reading this.. How can I possibly wait until MONDAY to get my hands on Compendium 2? EVERYTHING I LOVE DIES. It's like, I heard some of these things were going to happen, but WHEN they happened I couldn't help but cry. This last compendium ends the Whisperer arcs and starts (and ends) the last arc of the series, the Commonwealth arc. What I am saying is, I loved this huge ass volume. It was everything I expected it to be and more. Everything I look for in a source material. This graphic novel has eluded me for so long, I've been meaning to read it for such a long time, so this felt like homecoming to me. In more ways than one. Before recent wars and criminal adventures and subsequent psycho-medical research and publicity, PTSD was all but ignored by zombie comix.

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard - Waterstones The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard - Waterstones

But as far as reliance on tradition goes, you could do worse than Shakespeare. Yes, I said Shakespeare: 1)Conflict one. 2)Conflict two. 3)Violence, resolving one of the above, complicating the other. 4)Discourse on ethics 5)Repeat. Kirkman isn't a brilliant comic book writer like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, or Brian K. Vaughan. My main beef is with his often-stilted dialogue. But he writes tense plots (for the most part), changing situations, and memorable characters. He managed to create a compelling saga over almost 200 issues, which is quite an accomplishment, and created an enduring addition to pop culture in the process. Ammo is scarce, so that’s why that being able to shoot and doing it with precision becomes a vital skill where, Andrea, a young blonde woman, is showing to be the best shooter of the group. Overall the book was great. There was a lot of sex, cursing, and actions that should test one's morals. Not enough about zombies, as the book was more about the characters and their relationships/struggles to stay alive for an uncertain future. The book was not linear, which I found to be an added bonus. I get bored easily when it comes to novels, so the frequent change in scenes were pleasant to my reading experience.I've been reading The Walking Dead since well before the TV show began. I finally finished the last issue last week. I won't post a spoiler, but Kirkman ended the series well, on a dramatic and unexpected bookend, and a satisfactory denouement. So what is it that makes zombie stories so popular? Why do people love books like this one, or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or World War Z? Why do movies like Shaun of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead and even Resident Evil get people so excited? It certainly isn't because of the zombies, although it is always fun to see the special effects improve. There's also the question of how to organize a post-outbreak society. What kind of person or people should run the survivors' societies? Is this an opportunity to remake civilization, or should the old ways be adhered to? How much leeway to we have in restarting the world, and what will that look like in the end? The characters in this story have to deal with how to define a family when one's partner or parents or children could die at any time. They have a chance to redefine what is lawful and illegal, to toy with the notions of what is right and wrong, and to re-evaluate the role religion plays in their lives. It's a chance to rebuild the world from scratch, and the characters in this story test those limits in interesting and sometimes unsettling ways. Moreover, Kirkman did the minor characters so dirty in the last chapter/epilogue! Why was everyone so awful all of a sudden? What happened between the last chapter and the epilogue that turned everybody into whiny idiots? So this is where it all ends. The final instalment in the saga of The Walking Dead, in which a bunch of favourites will die, and the world will go on.

The Walking Dead: Compendium 1 - Google Play

I loved comparing the two. Some of my favorites here I don't like in the tv version For example I love Andrea in the comics but nearly despise her in the series-although I do like the actress). But bottom line, there is a lot that can be new. The entire time with the Commonwealth felt fruitless and pointless. It recycled a lot of ideas from other media, masking it as their own. Generic names, generic ideas, and stolen aspects made it difficult to read through. As this is a comic series, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the art, which is overall quite good. There were a few times when I had trouble telling some characters apart, but the high rate of attrition generally took care of that problem. The detail in the artwork is very impressive, though I can imagine there were more than a few times that Charlie Adlard cursed Robert Kirkman for setting a large part of the series in a locale with a prominent chain-link fence that couldn't easily be ignored. As this is a horror comic, the art is sometimes horrifying, very graphic and quite satisfying without being gratuitous. Well, mostly without being gratuitous....And then there's the fact they did THAT to MY FAVORITE CHARACTER DAMN YOU HOW DARE YOU DO THAT YOU BAD BAD BOYS!!!