The Walking Dead Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Tony Moore
As the Zombies rise, people’s true natures are revealed!
Ranking: 4 stars
With out a doubt, this is the most violent, bloody, gory comic book I’ve ever read. Despite that, Zombie books are a medium that reveals human nature like no other!
In all my years of reading comic books I never thought that I’d be this entertained by the zombie genre! As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I have parameters when it comes to violence in comics, and zombies are no exception. These creatures of the undead feast upon the flesh of innocent human beings, and viewers are exposed to the contents of what they eat. Despite being dominated by blood and gore, zombies provide something that other horror genre monsters lack: a clear view into the human psyche. The film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (George A. Romero) helped define the modern zombie by introducing them as flesh-eating monsters. Max Brook’s novel WORLD WAR Z took an even greater step by displaying how a worldwide zombie pandemic can abruptly throw civilization into chaos and madness. This event is more popularly known as the Zombie Apocalypse. Both works mentioned effectively display how the inner nature of humans can change for the worse when plagued by a threat beyond their imagining. The components of these two phenomenal works (though WORLD WAR Z was later inspired by this book) make Robert Kirkman’s THE WALKING DEAD, a saga that captures your attention hook-line and sinker!
This first volume of the ongoing series opens with a police officer from a small Georgia town named Rick Grimes, receiving a gunshot wound during a highway shoot out. Rick wakes up in the hospital three weeks later, only to find the entire building empty and abandoned, by the living that is! Rick is horrified to find the hospital overrun by corpses that move, walk, and have only one thing on what’s left of their mind: their next meal. After narrowly escaping the hospital, Rick shockingly discovers that these creatures dominate not just the hospital and his hometown, but the entire United States, and quite possibly the rest of the world. Although he finds his home abandoned, with his family gone, Rick still believes that his wife Lori, and his son Carl, survived the zombie outbreak. Following a lead that the larger cities where protected by the government, Rick decides to search for Lori and Carl in Atlanta. Making his way to Atlanta, he comes across a group of survivors stationed outside the now overrun city. Within this ragtag team of refugees, Rick will learn what it truly means to experience survival, as they must not only protect each other from the undead, but also from themselves, as they can easily plunge into the depths of savagery.
What truly makes THE WALKING DEAD a thrill-ride is that rather than focusing on the zombies themselves, Robert Kirkman directs the entire plot on the effect the zombies have on survivors of the apocalypse. Although the characters aren’t deeply explored to the extent they are in the TV series, Kirkman fully portrays how an invasion of biblical proportions reveals the true disposition of the victims. As the individuals in Rick’s group suffer from the zombie pandemic, various individuals lose their morale, and faith in life returning to normal. This leads to some members descending towards immorality caused by their own desires. Officer Shane, Rick’s lifetime friend and partner in the force, illustrates the descent into corruption better than any other survivor in the book, as he begins to develop envy for Rick when he becomes competitive for the objective of his yearning. An apocalyptic aftermath provides the perfect setting for the fall of civilized behavior, as fear of death causes men to give in to their urges, slowly rotting the principles of civilized society. It’s like a snake revealing it’s true self as it sheds its skin.
The only flaws I believe this book has, is the occasional fast-pace of the story, and that the level of language grows stronger towards the book’s end. Other than that, THE WALKING DEAD provides not only a gruesome zombie tale, but also portrays that a lack of rules and civilization can cause men to succumb to corruption. It’s astounding that a simple monster such as a zombie, can effectively demonstrate how far the human spirit can be pushed towards breaking point.
“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies
