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by Thom Yee
Why I’m watching… The Walking Dead
All Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels
Everybody’s watching The Walking Dead. It’s a cultural phenomenon so strong that it’s managed to attract people to the original comicbooks and is actually bringing regular people into comicbook stores, and that’s an incredibly momentous thing (and something that even Marvel’s movies generally fail to do). What creator Robert Kirkman has managed to do is create a perfect storm of commercial success, with massive viewerships, over and above usual cable network metrics, and rapid sellouts of print material available in all fine comic and book stores. If you want to watch The Walking Dead, there’s Sunday nights on AMC. If you want to talk The Walking Dead, Talking Dead, a show built entirely around fans discussions follows right after (and gets better ratings than many of its timeslot competitors). If you want to read The Walking Dead, there’s 118 issues (and counting) of comicbook. If you want to gift The Walking Dead, the comics are conveniently reprinted in collected edition trade paperbacks and massive prestige-format hardcover collections. And there’s just enough difference in these formats that people are compelled to watch and read all of it. I’ve been reading the comicbook almost since the beginning (this month is the comics’ 10th anniversary), and it’s remained consistently surprising, consistently inventive, and consistently compelling.
But the show is kind of a crapfest.
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