Zombie stories generally don’t last long – the idea of an ongoing zombie story struck most people as ludicrous – until a comic came along called The Walking Dead. This week, the 100th issue of that book comes out, and the series shows no signs of stopping. I’m taking this week to look at just HOW such a story could work.
Let’s make sure we’re on talking about the same comic, first of all. This is not an action comic, and it was never an action comic. Nine pages out of ten is people talking, sometimes while they’re walking or looking around. This is not a horror comic. There are surprises and gore aplenty, but they are not what the book is about. The Walking Dead is a zombie survival comic, which is a very different beast.
The zombie genre isn’t a subset of the Horror genre, it is a genre of its own. I say this because an element of any horror story is the “monster”. Jason Vorhees, Giger’s Alien, and Norman Bates are completely different entities, but each is a thinking creature, something with motivations that can be understood and used to defeat them. Jason can be taunted and distracted by Yo-Mama jokes, xenomorphs will stand down to protect eggs or incubators, and Mr. Bates wouldn’t hurt a fly (though you still want to be careful with Yo-Mama jokes). Zombies stand (or roam) apart. A zombie is not out for revenge, a zombie does not want to reproduce, a zombie has no desire for intimacy. There’s nothing in a zombie to outsmart, the best anyone can hope for is to put them down and hope that was all of them.
One heavy price to pay for a completely mindless enemy is a lack of banter between hero and villain. The only dialog is with fellow survivors. Most of the time it’s with friendlies, other times it’s with rivals, but everyone speaking wants the same thing: to not be eaten by zombies. There’s not much opportunity for dramatic tension when everyone has the same goal. This isn’t a problem when the narrative is just a couple hours long. There’s plenty of things we can survive not having for two hours, we can even have fun without them. The Walking Dead has been going for 100 issues now, and going strong. To read that many comics –to really read them – takes days, and its audience regularly comes back for more.
One of the things that keeps the series going is that it embraces where the drama in a zombie story comes from. The biggest threats in a zombie story aren’t always the zombies. What the “heroes” fight against are things like starvation, petty jealousy turning ugly, and exposure to the elements, things that can’t be shot at or beaten with a stick, but that can kill just as effectively as a zombie. Movies by nature don’t have time to show that kind of slow tension, and this is one of the most critical ways The Walking Dead sets itself apart.
In light of the fact that survival means more than just living past the next horde of undead, it’s imperative that the story follows people. They don’t have to be the smartest or strongest or cleverest, but they do have to be interesting. They need to be varied, they need to have moments of being happy and sad, and they need to change and grow in response to the world around them. This is where The Walking Dead has always shined.
In a feature-length movie, brain-bashing action and the need for survival create enough tension without getting stale. For a comic approaching its 100th issue, shoot-outs and escapes can’t always cut it. The reader NEEDS the characters to carry the story while the guns cool down and the pantries get restocked. The people that aren’t dead confront life and death situations every day, and that’s bad enough when they’re surrounded by people they trust. This cast is constantly finding new reasons to be suspicious of each other. When they do establish trust, new people come along to shake up the dynamic.
With issue 100, a new character is introduced whose like has never been seen before in the series. In a world where the dead walk, everyone has defined themselves by what they can give to others. All the leaders, the ones the audience is supposed to cheer for and the ones they hate, have had a plan to give their people and society a better future. For the past few issues, there’ve been mentions of one that has ascended in his society another way, a much older way: he’s in charge because he’s too brutal for anyone else to handle, and respecting his authority keeps him away. He shows up in this issue, and he leaves calmly and without injury to himself or his men. Rick’s group, on the other hand, is broken on many levels.
The Walking Dead isn’t a story about curing a virus or lifting a curse. The Walking Dead isn’t about uncovering responsible parties and punishing them. The Walking Dead is about people with beating hearts and everything they do to keep them beating. It’s rarely pretty, and almost impossible to tear yourself away. Cheers, Kirkman and company.
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