Download Walking Dead Comics
Nubar Garrido
The Walking Dead is a different case. Rather than being based on a series of spread-out novels that are a thousand or more pages each, The Walking Dead is a comic series spanning nearly 140 issues so far. It took me a good long while to decide to make the leap and read the comics all the way through. In this case, it wasn't a spoiler that broke the camel's back, but Aaron, the smiley stranger who led Rick and the others to his compound in last week's episode. I was just tired of waiting for answers when I knew the answers were out there already. I wanted to know if Aaron would be yet another Judas, or finally lead the group to an uncorrupt haven. I surrendered, and read every single issue of the comic that has been released to date.
But The Walking Dead? 137 issues took me two days. And as readers will know, finishing the comics leaves you miles ahead of where the show currently is, as I believe in over four years now, they're not much past issue 80 in terms of the overall story. This is of course the complete opposite of Game of Thrones, where already the show threatens to bump up against the books as Martin takes a very, very long time to produce new novels. Eventually, as soon as this year or next, the show will likely pass them altogether.
But now, reading The Walking Dead comics, I feel like I've just read through the next three or four years of the show in less than a single day. It's somewhat liberating to know what comes next, and yet it's also kind of an unhealthy sugar rush. I've spent four and a half years watching this show week to week, and now suddenly, I'm probably four years ahead of it. It's a rather bizarre feeling.
It makes me wonder how exactly the relationship between the show and comics will continue. Robert Kirkman has said that he has at least 300 issues worth of content mapped out, meaning that the comic series isn't even halfway over yet. That also means that at the current rate of production, The Walking Dead show is looking at 12-15 total seasons at the very least, unless they switch from adding content to the comics to cutting it instead. Even though the show is as popular as it is, I can't imagine anyone would even want it to last that long, and I have a feeling the show will come up with its own conclusion as the comic marches on into the indefinite future.
Perhaps the biggest departure from the comics to the show, which I was surprised to witness, was how both handled the character of Andrea. In the comic, she's a tough-as-nails fighter and the group's sharpshooter. In the show, she started down that path, but got derailed by a horrible season three plotline that made her fall in love with the Governor. Her character was so badly mangled by the end of that storyline that the show seemed to feel it had no choice but to kill her.
How the show handles something like this is going to be tricky. Already it seems like the show is having Michonne step up and take on the role Andrea used to have. Of course, Michonne has her own storylines and romantic conquests in the comic, so those may have to be shelved. It's a shell game, and it's going to be very interesting to see if Michonne and Rick end up together down the line, with her having essentially absorbed Andrea's essence. Some could argue a lot of Andrea's badassery has been given to Carol instead, though she seems destined to end up with Daryl at some point down the line. And there's another point. In the comics, Carol was a complete nutjob that at one time wanted to marry both Lori and Rick before she was eventually killed off, while her daughter Sophia is still alive in the comics today. But the show has transformed her from grieving mother to stone-cold killer, and one of its best characters.
So while reading the comics is an invitation for probable spoilers, it can still keep you guessing as to what's actually going to happen on the show given how often AMC invents their own ways for the story to play out. They keep the overall framework of the plot, but the individual decisions vary dramatically. While book readers knew exactly who would get their head chopped off at the end of Game of Thrones season one, comic readers would have been mistaken about a similar beheading in The Walking Dead season three.
And finally, there's the ultimate question. Which is better: the show or the comics? You couldn't really ask a more subjective question, but I have a theory that whichever someone consumes first, they're more likely to say that it's their favorite. Comic fans will often lambast the show for changing things, while show readers may find many elements of the comics off-putting or lacking the weight of the show. Shane throwing open the barn to reveal a zombified Sophia is probably one of the best moments of the series, for example, and it never happened in the comic. Honestly, I think the show has done a better job creating more impactful moments than the comic like that one, and has also allowed us to really get to know these characters well. But that's the nature of TV, and we've simply spent a lot more time with them over the years. I think both are well-done, but ultimately it may come down to which medium you like more as a whole, comics or TV, and which seasons of the show you're talking about. I'd say the comic handled the Governor's saga better than the show's disastrous season three, but since Scott Gimple took over as showrunner, the show has been practically flawless in my eyes, and has ascended to a whole new level of quality.
Again, I don't regret skipping ahead by reading the comics, but knowing what's coming does dampen the excitement of the show a bit. But given how much the show twists the source material, for better or worse, it's still going to be an interesting ride for years to come.
Rick Grimes was a Atlanta police officer. After being shot by criminals, he wakes from a coma in the hospital to see that his town is overrun with walking dead people.[5] He goes to Atlanta, Georgia to look for his wife and son. Rick finds them in a small camp near the city.[6] The group is being led by Shane. Shane was Rick's partner as a police officer. He helped Lori and Carl get to Atlanta.
The series is very well liked by critics. It won the Eisner Award for "Best Continuing Series" in 2010.[41] Eric Sunde of IGN comics called it "one of the best monthly comics available".[42] Max Brooks told Kirkman that he read The Walking Dead and liked it.[43]
All hardcovers have the contents of the comics with the covers. Some have extra material. They are larger than the paperbacks. Each hardcover has two story arcs from the series. Signed versions of the books are available, each limited to 310 pieces.
I just got an e-mail from cgc telling me that my walking dead #1 was graded 9.8 and is being shipped back to me. I was wondering if anyone knows any details into the whole black "Mature Readers" label versus the white label. My copy is black but I also have an ungraded white label issue which Im about to send into grade. I'm looking for some more info regarding which one if any is the rarer of the two. Ultimately I'd like to decide which one I should hang on to and which one I should sell.
For fans of the "Walking Dead" comic books, the events of the finale weren't entirely unexpected. The Terminus twist, as well as the demise of Joe and the Claimers, come straight out of the comics, albeit under different circumstances -- not unlike how [article id="1724326"]Lizzie and Mika's deaths[/article] took place on the show versus what happened in the comics.
Now, let's talk about Terminus and the cannibals. There is no Terminus in the "Walking Dead" comics, but the cannibals very much exist, operating as a pack of hunters that stay alive by hunting down and feasting on their fellow man. Many fans thought that Joe's Claimers would turn out to be the man-eating hunters; instead, that distinction belongs to the termites of Terminus.
Chris and the hunters stalk and harass Rick's group, going so far as to abduct Dale (still alive at this point in the comics; long deceased on the show). They remove one of his legs, and eat it for supper.
It's hard to know what will happen next on "The Walking Dead." The show has deviated from the comics at almost every turn, while still offering enough winks and nods to keep fans of the source material happy. Will the show's treatment of the cannibals end as it did in the comics?
I noticed this while reading the comics, too. I had to make the effort to stop dwelling and see past the freckles when they first appeared. Little things like that make my brain tweak. (Like the continuity lapse of Amy's gun holster in Vol. 1, at the campfire scene just before she gets bit.) In magical library somewhere, there are copies of comics in which all these accidental omissions of detail are gone.
I'm pretty sure I did a double take when I saw Andrea drawn anew in Vol. 2, flipping back through Vol. 1 (TPB) to make sure I wasn't crazy or that inattentive. Maybe Charlie Adlard just has a thing for freckles on his characters in this comic. I think there's at least 2 others that have freckles. I don't think of freckles as the norm in comics, and comparatively, they seem to appear quite frequently in WD. (Of course, I might be wrong. I don't read a ton of comics. I rent these through interlibrary loan, and while up to date - besides Vol. 15 - I've only read everything once.)
AMC's The Walking Dead season 9 did something similar, removing Rick from the series in such a way that all the characters believe he's dead even though he's not. On television, Rick is last seen being taken away in a helicopter for some unknown destination, but he's set to return in three TV movies that will explore what's happened to him since. The Walking Dead comics, however, aren't interested in simply sidelining Rick and instead choose to remove him from the series permanently.
At the very end of The Walking Dead #191, Rick is shot by Sebastian Milton, the son of The Commonwealth's leader, Pamela. He doesn't die, not yet anyway, but the issue's cliffhanger ending had many a fan wondering if this really was the end for Rick. As it turns out, it is the end - and an end which creator Robert Kirkman reveals he's been planning for a long time, disputing claims in the issue's letters column that Rick's death in the comics is in any way a response to Rick's not-death on the show. Kirkman has always said that anyone can die in The Walking Dead comics, and in issue #192, that time has come for Rick Grimes.
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