When I first heard about AMC developing Robert Kirkman’s Eisner winning comic book series The Walking Dead into a television series, my initial thought was a mixture of bemusement and intrigue, because 1) it was a horror comic about zombies and 2) how would the producers pass it off as a legitimate piece of character fiction without angering both the highly irritating Parents Television Council and diehard fans of the book.
Let me point out first that I was not a fan of the comic. In fact, I didn’t do anything zombie-related outside of the Romero films, the Resident Evil franchise and few other video games and films. Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of zombie films other than Romero’s Dead series, owning a total of 8 zombie movies. My cousin, who is a huge fan of The Walking Dead since its inception, tried to get me to read the comic about two years ago, but I wouldn’t budge. Why? Well, basically I thought that the book was nothing but a simple gorefest with no depth whatsoever. Ouch, right?
I blame my cousin for my ill-advised sentiment, because the guy would watch and read anything zombie-related, most of which focused more on the gore and nothing on story, or not enough depth for us to care about the characters getting their necks chewed off every minute on the hour. So basically anything coming from him is usually met with a raised eyebrow and a mental filing of “Do Not Touch With 10ft Pole.” But after actually picking up The Walking Dead for myself out of sheer curiosity as to why AMC would be interested in adding something of this caliber to their line-up, I’m going to admit that I was utterly, in every respect, dead wrong about The Walking Dead.
Oh, God, how wrong I was.
The Walking Dead is one of the most perfect coalescences of horror, drama, character development, and thematic subject matter to have ever been created and blew my mind from page one. I read the entire series two months before the premiere of the television adaptation and I’m still in awe of how Kirkman and his team continually manage to keep the story fresh and the drama red hot. One of the aspects of the comic that I fell in love with was that the zombies are pretty much in the background. The book is all about the characters and it never loses sight of that mission statement, which makes it stick out above the rest of genre fiction like a beacon of hope for more smart horror to head our way. There is no stopping once you get on The Walking Dead train and the television series turned out to be no different.
Twenty-four issues into the comic, I began to get a little apprehensive about how the comic would transfer over to the screen. Some of the aspects I hoped the producers wouldn’t focus too much on was over satisfying the gore component, which was what a lot of horror fans were more vocal about (and sadly some still are), and the frank subject matter that, dare I say, surpasses some of AMC’s other high-caliber dramas in content and tone. While the series does center around zombies (which pretty much entails an evisceration frenzy), it’s the characterization of The Walking Dead which truly makes the book pop. So I was mostly worried over if some of the character dynamic would be sacrificed in order to pass FCC rules and regulations rather than whether or not we would see more entrails being feasted upon. Luckily everything transferred over far better than anyone expected and I am more than pleased with the result, as are over a million of new and old fans alike as well.
However, there are some out there who don’t take too kindly to the show’s content.
From complaints about how dull the show is to the lack of zombies and not enough gore, some of the fandom are not happy with
what Frank Darabont and AMC has produced so far. This puzzles me, because I thought that the book, the source of the show, was about the fight to stay human, in every form of the word, while the world around the characters falls apart on a daily basis. At least that’s what Robert Kirkman, the man behind the world of inhabited by Rick Grimes and crew, claims for it to be. So what gives? Why the dissension?
Well, one theory that I personally have is that people who focus on the zombie count, zombie feast, or zombie kill on the show, or in the comic, are missing out on the big picture, which is that the characters of The Walking Dead are not fighting zombies just for the hell of it. They are fighting to maintain their humanity and it’s getting harder to do so with each issue/episode, especially with people of their own kind doing inhumane acts to stay alive. This is why I started to read the series and give it the proper respect that it should’ve received from me since Day One, because it is more than a simple gorefest with no depth whatsoever. It’s a character drama, through and through, clearly showing us at our worst in light of trying times.
In the end, the zombies are just a part of the overall problem, especially as the characters will face even more soulless characters than the undead in the near future. So I end this commentary by asking the readers one question:
Are you tuned into The Walking Dead for the characters? Or the zombies?
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