Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Walking Dead

Kidblast said:
I am half way through the comic book series which I started because of the excellent reviews it had been receiving and as a comic nut I am always interested in indie releases. Just wanted to throw in some thoughts.

It's first and foremost a post apocalypse survival horror story in which the presence of zombies soon becomes nothing more than a hindrance and become very much peripheral to the story. IMO they're there just as an excuse to show some pretty horrific violence and gore. The core story is about the group of survivors and their relationships with each other.

47 comics into the story and not once have any of the characters had a conversation as to what is actually going on and why what is happening is happening. I find that very strange.

I don't know about the TV version but in the comic book there are no real likeable characters and generally the story is pretty shoddily written and the relationships are close to absurd.

Later in the series it becomes almost Saw like in it's violence and is completely OTT, some of the things that happen to the characters are quite frankly repulsive and completely uncalled for (a main female character gets chained up and then brutally and systematically beaten and raped by a psychopathic despot).

When I heard they were making it into a TV show I could not see how they could get it past the censors without editing the story to hell and ultimately leaving an incredibly mundane piece that's been told a million times before. For me, the first few editions were great, when Rick is discovering his situation (28 days later) but as soon as it becomes heavily character driven it grinds to a halt. The zombie bashing is so routine that it becomes boring.

As I said, I am half way through the comic series and I have completely lost interest and have since ditched it. The characters are annoying and the story is absurd and the violence is extreme. The cover art and the landscape art were the only redeeming factors.

I'll be watching the TV series but the casting of Egg as Rick does not bode well (why they couldn't find an American actor I do not know, the main guy from 'six feet under' would have been perfect casting IMO).

Unless they completely rewrite the story I can't see this series maintaining pace because it gets so slow and as it slows it just starts to get more absurd and more violent. Mark my words, after the initial splatter fest of the opening two episodes I bet the show grinds to a halt.
Click to expand...

I think this is complete cobblers, to be honest. The comic is paced really well - there are interludes when the action slows down for a bit but it rarely lasts more than an issue or two. I think that makes a lot of sense - let the characters catch their breaths and interact before the shit hits the fan again. And are you really complaining about a post-apocalyptic, zombie horror story being violent? What do you expect exactly?

It isn't always easy to like the characters either but it is easy to sympathise with them. It's the whole point of the book - regular people being forced into this terrible situation in which they do terrible things to survive. They are unravelling mentally, physically and morally before our very eyes and therefore frequently unlikeable. The title - The Walking Dead - describes the plight of the characters as much as it does the zombies.

The only criticism I'd have of the book is that it lacks humour. People find something to joke about in the most outrageously bleak situations and I suspect a zombie apocalypse would be no different.
 
andy2002 said:
I think this is complete cobblers, to be honest. The comic is paced really well - there are interludes when the action slows down for a bit but it rarely lasts more than an issue or two. I think that makes a lot of sense - let the characters catch their breaths and interact before the shit hits the fan again. And are you really complaining about a post-apocalyptic, zombie horror story being violent? What do you expect exactly?

It isn't always easy to like the characters either but it is easy to sympathise with them. It's the whole point of the book - regular people being forced into this terrible situation in which they do terrible things to survive. They are unravelling mentally, physically and morally before our very eyes and therefore frequently unlikeable. The title - The Walking Dead - describes the plight of the characters as much as it does the zombies.

The only criticism I'd have of the book is that it lacks humour. People find something to joke about in the most outrageously bleak situations and I suspect a zombie apocalypse would be no different.
Click to expand...

hence Rick saying we are the walking dead...

TBf if you stopped at Michonnes rape then you'd probably think it was a brutal series but it's not even half way through and it's no where near ending as yet at 79 (released in about a week) with the pacing of the TV series then I'd expect Rick to find the camp and Shane to die in the next episode and have them packing ready to leave... Which to me might lose a little in it's appeal...
 
GarfieldLeChat said:
I think you've entirely missed the point of the series and should stop reading something you've clearly not understood and dislike.

The series is bleak as fuck because unsurprisingly if the entire world died and became infected and had their barriers removed because no one would up hold social or legal convention then most people become savage in a realitively short period of time...

The zombies are still key they are the ever present danger which drives and motivates pretty much everyones actions and the sadness of people losing their loved ones and desperately attempting to hold on to the final shreads of their humanity as each moment becomes more desperate and difficult is pretty much unending. which is exactly what would happen if this situation were to occur...

the series pulls no punches and isn't one which will turn out well nor is it likely to as things are clearly very very fucked...
Click to expand...

Read my post again because I think you missed the part where I wrote "I ditched it". That means I am no longer reading it. It's standard etiquette to at least pretend you read a post before attributing a response to it :facepalm:

The story is just fantastically wack and it is poorly written. Simple as that.

Grabbed the first episode today. Will watch it later.
 
Kidblast said:
Read my post again because I think you missed the part where I wrote "I ditched it". That means I am no longer reading it. It's standard etiquette to at least pretend you read a post before attributing a response to it :facepalm:

The story is just fantastically wack and it is poorly written. Simple as that.

Grabbed the first episode today. Will watch it later.
Click to expand...

You're an illiterate ignoramus...

that's clear...
 
Pretty good for starters - Egg made a decent fist of it - not familiar with the books and I'm not expecting anything wildly original, so I'll probably enjoy it. And there's bugger all on TV on Fridays anyway.
 
Honestly, anybody thinking Walking Dead is some sort of horribly violent and disgusting zombie comic book has clearly never read Crossed.
 
Ceej said:
Pretty good for starters - Egg made a decent fist of it - not familiar with the books and I'm not expecting anything wildly original, so I'll probably enjoy it. And there's bugger all on TV on Fridays anyway.
Click to expand...

I concur with this
 
Apart from the blatant 28 days rip off with the wake up in hospital though it was promising. Well paced and at least we knew why he was in hospital and what was happening over the course of the first episode.

One thing though, how long was he in a 'coma'/sedated given the obvious relationship between his wife and his oppo? Oras i'm thinking was his wife was already having an affair with his mate?
 
With luck should have episode 2 by the end of the day. :mad: @ BT

And it's a zombie series....of course there will be cliche's a plenty....it's zombies FFS!
 
Fedayn said:
Apart from the blatant 28 days rip off with the wake up in hospital though it was promising.
Click to expand...
I believe its already been pointed out the comics came before 28 Days, and if anything is being ripped off it's probably the opening sequence of the Day of the Triffids.

Episode 2 is now available for download.
 
maldwyn said:
I believe its already been pointed out the comics came before 28 Days, and if anything is being ripped off it's probably the opening sequence of the Day of the Triffids.

Episode 2 is now available for download.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Aye it would appear than that both took a wee bit from DotT.
 
The Groke said:
FWIW, it would seem that 28 Days Later was 2002 and the comic series started in 2003.

Still, you are right about the Triffids.

:)
Click to expand...

Kirkman on 28 Days Later similarities

"Welcome to my life seven years ago. It was complete coincidence. I saw 28 Days Later shortly before the first issue of Walking Dead was released. That first issue came out in October of 2003 and 28 Days Later was released in the States in June of 2003. So we were working on our second issue by the time I saw it. It was going to be a matter of somehow trying to restage the entire first issue, because it was a very similar coma opening. I made a decision—which I pretty much regret at this point—I said, “You know what? It’s so different [from that point on], I will probably never hear anything about this.” And I was wrong. It was a little annoying. But great minds think alike, right?

Source
 
sorry what the fuck are they all doing in the city that doesn't happen til much later, ditto the smearing themselves in zombie gunk...

why didn't rick and glenn leap from roof to roof...

why was a charcter which only appears way after the farm and the prison appeared shakelled to the roof now...

Lori and Shane WTF, seriously they fucked twice early on as lori reveals at the prison then nothing she hated him cos of her guilt she wasn't some sex starved nymph temptress waiting for a banging....

seriously played that all wrong...

man this is going down hill straight away...
 
GarfieldLeChat said:
sorry what the fuck are they all doing in the city that doesn't happen til much later, ditto the smearing themselves in zombie gunk...

why didn't rick and glenn leap from roof to roof...

why was a charcter which only appears way after the farm and the prison appeared shakelled to the roof now...

Lori and Shane WTF, seriously they fucked twice early on as lori reveals at the prison then nothing she hated him cos of her guilt she wasn't some sex starved nymph temptress waiting for a banging....

seriously played that all wrong...

man this is going down hill straight away...
Click to expand...

You realise Kirkmans been very involved in this and announced several times that there will be differences, some major, to the comics right?

For one thing an exact match to the comic would probably reach the end of issue 78 by the end of the first season
 
Not familiar with the comics but I like an 'adaptation' rather than a slavish reproduction, myself.....if I wanted a totally true to the book experience, I'd read the book. There's an advantage I think in not knowing exactly what will happen.
 
Ceej said:
Not familiar with the comics but I like an 'adaptation' rather than a slavish reproduction, myself.....if I wanted a totally true to the book experience, I'd read the book. There's an advantage I think in not knowing exactly what will happen.
Click to expand...

And hopefully people who have read the comics refrain from making any comments about them in the TV show thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
Karl Masks vs The Walking Dead franchise
Replies
15
Views
373
Hassan I Sabha
Hassan I Sabha
Orang Utan
Films you have walked out on*
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
166
Views
5K
stdP
stdP
tim
Ding Dong Leslie Phillips is dead.
Replies
21
Views
754
seeformiles
seeformiles
Idris2002
Jean-Luc Godard Dead at 91
2
Replies
52
Views
1K
petee
petee
steveseagull
ITV: Walk in
Replies
15
Views
475
hitmouse
hitmouse
Back
Top Bottom