Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye





One day everything seems normal. Suddenly, the dead are rising and feeding on the living. The world falls apart in weeks, as the government and armies are overrun by the zombies. Not long after the zombies appear there is no government, no police force, no one growing food, no manufacturing--nothing that people need to stay safe and alive. It is everyone for themselves in this new horrific world.

Kirkman's series The Walking Dead is intended to be a social commentary on what happens to people when society falls apart and they are placed in impossible situations. How do different people react? How do they gradually change as anyone inevitably would when faced with an end of the world scenario such as this? The series focuses on Rick Grimes a police officer who wakes up from a coma in the hospital and finds the world he has known is gone. He meets up with other survivors while searching for his wife and son. It is through this group of survivors we learn how different people react to the zombie apocalypse.

Days Gone Bye is the first volume in The Walking Dead series. It introduces us to some of the main characters. Warning: do not get overly attached to people as characters die frequently in this series. If they live, you will see your favorites go through horrible things. Kirkman spares the characters nothing. I was surprised by how quickly things happened in this book. Do not expect great depth to the story or characters in this volume. It is the first book, and it followed the typical series opening where everything in the series is being introduced. Although it is an apocalyptic story, I hope that there will be more depth in the following books, and some of the questionable issues that have already cropped up with characters will balance out.

In comparison to the television series based off this graphic novel series, I would say so far, the show is better. I might be biased because I saw the show first, despite my friends trying to get me to read this series for years. I will read the rest of the series before final judgement, but that is my opinion for now. The show does a better job with character development, so you can see the changes as they are exposed to this world.

If you like zombie apocalypse stories, I would give this one a try.



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