Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard & Tony Moore
The Walking Dead compendium one (2015)
I've been reluctant to approach the Walking Dead for a long time, mainly because I've known Charlie Adlard since we met at Maidstone College of Art back in 1842, and I would have felt awkward had it turned out to be rubbish. Additionally, I've seen three episodes of the television adaptation, and while I can appreciate it as a quality product, I otherwise didn't like it at all. One episode featured humans kept as food animals for a cannibal enclave in its post-apocalyptic world, and what with all the hyper-realistic rotting corpses, it was all just a bit too stomach-churningly repellent for me. Then someone gave me this housebrick for Christmas, collecting the first forty-eight issues, thus forcing my hand.
I'm not sure I really understand horror, or at least I don't understand the kind which engages itself mainly with making you throw up for the sake of making you throw up. It seems pointless, even childish; and besides which, whatever atrocity or violation one might attach to the end of a stick and waggle in the viewer's face will usually have some historical or literary precedent in which it makes a lot more sense through having a context other than ewww gross with knobs on. Even Whitehouse were more than just cackling and scary faces.
To both my surprise and relief, not only is the Walking Dead about more than just zombies and beheadings, but the zombies are arguably the least important element of the equation, really just a function of the environment. The comic is about people trying to survive in a world in which they have once again become subject to the laws of nature, and how this changes them, and what that says about the rest of us - Lord of the Flies without a safety net. It's relentless, gruesome and brutal in ways you may not even have anticipated, and yet because the horror is stylised in Charlie's powerfully expressive black and white art, its impact is retained without the gore eclipsing or diminishing the power of the narrative or what the story is trying to do. The television show probably does the same thing, but I personally found it difficult to see past hyper-realistic CGI organs pulsing and splattering all over the screen. Additionally, the starkly monochrome comic strip form allows for silence and contrast, which is what this sort of story really needs in order to work.
When I first met Charlie we were both on a film course, albeit a film course with aspirations to fine art, and among the work he'd shown at his interview was - if I'm remembering this correctly - Sweet Dreams, a zombie horror filmed on Super 8mm and featuring various school friends shambling around local woodland beneath layers of Halloween make-up purchased from Boots; so he's been tied up with the undead for a long time. It was mostly his fault that I got hooked on American comics - not that I'm complaining - and by the end of the eighties we were collaborating on various strips - some more convincing than others, myself writing and Charlie drawing - with the intention of breaking into the comics industry; so you can probably appreciate why I would have felt awkward picking up the Walking Dead and deciding I didn't like it. Thankfully, it turns out to be a masterpiece, a genuinely intelligent story occasionally sailing a bit too close to the truth for comfort, but in just the right way, and with art perfectly matched - powerful and moody with a brooding European sensibility despite the influence of - making an educated guess - Walt Simonson and Mike Mignola. Earlier issues struggled with the occasional dialogue bubble crammed with just a little more exposition than seemed necessary, but otherwise it's impossible to find fault with this book.
I've been reluctant to approach the Walking Dead for a long time, mainly because I've known Charlie Adlard since we met at Maidstone College of Art back in 1842, and I would have felt awkward had it turned out to be rubbish. Additionally, I've seen three episodes of the television adaptation, and while I can appreciate it as a quality product, I otherwise didn't like it at all. One episode featured humans kept as food animals for a cannibal enclave in its post-apocalyptic world, and what with all the hyper-realistic rotting corpses, it was all just a bit too stomach-churningly repellent for me. Then someone gave me this housebrick for Christmas, collecting the first forty-eight issues, thus forcing my hand.
I'm not sure I really understand horror, or at least I don't understand the kind which engages itself mainly with making you throw up for the sake of making you throw up. It seems pointless, even childish; and besides which, whatever atrocity or violation one might attach to the end of a stick and waggle in the viewer's face will usually have some historical or literary precedent in which it makes a lot more sense through having a context other than ewww gross with knobs on. Even Whitehouse were more than just cackling and scary faces.
To both my surprise and relief, not only is the Walking Dead about more than just zombies and beheadings, but the zombies are arguably the least important element of the equation, really just a function of the environment. The comic is about people trying to survive in a world in which they have once again become subject to the laws of nature, and how this changes them, and what that says about the rest of us - Lord of the Flies without a safety net. It's relentless, gruesome and brutal in ways you may not even have anticipated, and yet because the horror is stylised in Charlie's powerfully expressive black and white art, its impact is retained without the gore eclipsing or diminishing the power of the narrative or what the story is trying to do. The television show probably does the same thing, but I personally found it difficult to see past hyper-realistic CGI organs pulsing and splattering all over the screen. Additionally, the starkly monochrome comic strip form allows for silence and contrast, which is what this sort of story really needs in order to work.
When I first met Charlie we were both on a film course, albeit a film course with aspirations to fine art, and among the work he'd shown at his interview was - if I'm remembering this correctly - Sweet Dreams, a zombie horror filmed on Super 8mm and featuring various school friends shambling around local woodland beneath layers of Halloween make-up purchased from Boots; so he's been tied up with the undead for a long time. It was mostly his fault that I got hooked on American comics - not that I'm complaining - and by the end of the eighties we were collaborating on various strips - some more convincing than others, myself writing and Charlie drawing - with the intention of breaking into the comics industry; so you can probably appreciate why I would have felt awkward picking up the Walking Dead and deciding I didn't like it. Thankfully, it turns out to be a masterpiece, a genuinely intelligent story occasionally sailing a bit too close to the truth for comfort, but in just the right way, and with art perfectly matched - powerful and moody with a brooding European sensibility despite the influence of - making an educated guess - Walt Simonson and Mike Mignola. Earlier issues struggled with the occasional dialogue bubble crammed with just a little more exposition than seemed necessary, but otherwise it's impossible to find fault with this book.
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