The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye

By Alex De-Gruchy
January 11, 2006

Zombies. You gotta love them. Personally, I've been a fan of the zombie genre for years, ever since watching George A. Romero's "Dead" trilogy as a kid. So it always did seem that movies were the only real medium in which you could find a good zombie story. However, with the undead gaining a new burst of popularity over the last few years, comic books are just one of the places where they have flourished. We've had titles such as Remains by Steve Niles as well as Frank Cho's Zombie King. But the title which has gained the most recognition is Robert Kirkman's ongoing series, The Walking Dead.

Plot

The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye begins with Kentucky cop Rick Grimes getting shot in the line of duty. He falls into a coma, and several weeks later wakes up in a seemingly abandoned hospital, in a world where the dead have risen. He has one thought - to get home to his wife Lori, and son Carl. Finding his house abandoned, Rick learns that all media has shut down after informing people to relocate to the nearest major city.

Rick sets out towards Atlanta, where his in-laws live, and where he's hoping he'll find Lori and Carl. However, the city's streets are packed with zombies, and Rick barely escapes, ending up in the woods outside the city where several survivors have set up camp. Rick finds Lori and Carl among the group, and also present is Shane, Rick's partner from the force who got Lori and Carl out of Kentucky when things went bad. Apart from some family members who have managed to stay together, the other people in the group were strangers to each other before they arrived there, but now they all co-operate to try to survive.

The situation at the camp doesn't seem so bad for a while, but the survivors soon discover that in this new world of the undead, nowhere is truly safe. Also, the friendship between Rick and Shane begins to deteriorate as a secret is revealed, and with tensions - and the bodycount - rising, events come to a shocking climax when one survivor takes the life of another to protect someone they love.

Characterisation

Like some of the great zombie movies, The Walking Dead is just as much - if not more - about the human survivors and their lives as it is about actual zombies. Even though the country is swarming with the undead, it isn't the zombies that drive the story, but the characters, their personalities and their relationships. With this in mind, sharp and distinct characterisation is essential, and Kirkman has done an excellent job on this front.

The main character, Rick, is an everyman, someone whose reaction to the world in which he wakes is easily understandable - he just wants to find his wife and son. He's a good guy who does what he can to help those around him. His background as a cop seems to help him deal with the group of survivors which he becomes a part of. However, the same can never quite be said about Shane, Rick's old partner. Although he has done what he can to help Lori, Carl and the others, we soon begin to see that there is a lot going on beneath the surface of Shane that even Rick is unaware of, and his attitude and temperament only worsens as time goes on.

Lori and Carl are Rick's backbone, the ones who keep him going, giving him the determination to survive. Some other survivors in the camp include: Jim, a quiet, broken man who saw his whole family get torn apart before his eyes; Dale, a friendly, middle-aged man who lost his wife and owns the mobile camper around which the group build their camp, and married couple Allen and Donna and their young twins. Each of these characters has enough of their own personality traits that they don't sound the same, however it can initially be a little overwhelming for the reader when introduced to all these people at once, trying to recall who is who.

Art

The Walking Dead is a black-and-white book, pencilled and inked by Tony Moore, with additional gray tones by Cliff Rathburn. Moore's pencils are bold and detailed enough to convey everything we need to know in the panels, even without the use of colour. In addition, his storytelling is seamless and easy to read. This is a book with many scenes of dialogue and character interaction, but Moore manages to keep the pace moving and doesn't allow the story to become visually dull with page after page of talking heads. The only downfall with the art is that from time to time the facial expressions seem uneven, sometimes appearing too cartoony alongside the rest of the art and the general atmosphere of the story.

Moore also proves that he can draw a mean zombie - the shuffling undead here aren't just ragged carbon-copies of each other. Moore puts enough detail and variation into his zombies to keep them visually interesting, whether it's a horde of them hungrily closing in on Rick on a city street, or a solitary, almost-skeletal zombie lying in the grass. One particularly exceptional example of Moore's artistic abilities and great-looking (so to speak) zombies is a tense and exciting action scene which occurs when Rick and fellow survivor Glenn are attacked by a group of zombies on a rain-soaked city street.

Overall

As Kirkman himself states in his introduction to the book, The Walking Dead will be "the zombie movie that never ends." This first volume is only the beginning of Rick's journey, and it does a great job of introducing this man, the people around him and the world in which they now have to live. The threat of danger is constant, as Kirkman proves more than once here, and this really gives the impression that any one of these characters may not stick around, adding to the tension and keeping the reader interested in where the story is heading.

As I said earlier, there is a great deal of dialogue and characterisation in this book, so it might not be for those looking for a gore-filled, action-packed zombie story. A lot of time is spent meeting and getting to know these characters, and although there are occasions when the pace does slow down perhaps a little too much for its own good, there's usually a sudden zombie attack right around the corner to shake things up. If you're a casual reader, there is enough drama, action and plot twists here to keep you interested in Rick's story and where it's going. However, if you're already a fan of the zombie genre, then The Walking Dead is a great book to check out as Kirkman is clearly a fan himself, and his love of the genre comes through in every page. Hopefully, The Walking Dead won't be returning to the grave anytime soon.

Publisher: Image Comics
Writing: Robert Kirkman
Pencils, Inks, & Gray Tones: Tony Moore
Additional Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Collects The Walking Dead Issues #1-6