Today I picked up and devoured the latest collection in the gripping, relentlessly savage horror comic, The Walking Dead, which details the travails of the few survivors of a plague of zombiism that destroys America. The Walking Dead is easily the grimmest thing I’ve read since On the Beach, and it’s magnificently plotted, the very definition of un-put-downable. Imagine 28 Days Later, but from outside the safe zone, a world where no government has restructured society and is working systematically to put down the biters. Imagine Dawn of the Dead, but the cavalry never arrives, and they spend the rest of their lives dodging the zombies.
I think I like this volume the best of any of them so far. It’s emotionally wrenching, exploring the tenderness and the emotional scars that the child survivors face, and best of all, the authors give us a tiny, eensy ray of hope by suggesting that, sometime further into the story, we may find out what causes zombiism and what can be done to end the plague. It’s a tiny thread of hope, but I’m clutching it to my chest like a life-preserver. Volume ten, come soon!
The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain