When the 17th Walking Dead collection came out last December, I called it “grim,” and mentioned that Kirkman and co had introduced some new bad guys that made the Governor seem like a Smurf. Well, now Book 18: What Comes After is out, and the new badguy, a psycho named Negan, is back, and holy. frigging. hell. is he ever evil. Seriously. Hannibal Lector is a comforting Mister Rogers figure next to him. If you like the TV show and haven’t read the comics, do. You can get the entire emotional rollercoaster punch of a whole season in one or two volumes you’ll be able to inhale in about an hour. By the time you get to book 18, you’re basically mainlining it, distilling it to pure granules and letting them dissolve under your eyelids. And book 18 is special, even by those standards.
The Walking Dead 18: What Comes After