#4) Have a Moment of Genuine Horror
Another kind of bland book with a great moment is the aforementioned Revival. The first issue is mostly set-up and the finale commits the writing crime of broadcasting the ending splash a mile away, but the final scene of the book is a genuinely unnerving moment that has nothing to do with flesh eating while still establishing the zombies in the book are dangerous. Let’s just say that it’s going to stick with you, especially when you go to the dentist.
Note that I’m not talking about gore here. Gore is not scary. Never has been, never really will be. I’m talking about horror: You’re making a comic about the dead getting out of their graves, now cross a few lines.
#5) Make It a Miniseries
When I discovered The Walking Dead when it first came out, it was a book I couldn’t get enough of. Even when it jumped the rails with Michonne, I kept reading. I stopped at around issue forty.
I picked up the hundredth issue when it came out and found that nothing had really changed.
In short, have an end-game. Build to something. Otherwise, you’re just spinning your undead wheels.
How about you? What would it take to make you pick up a zombie book?
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What about Michonne made you stop? The Governor scenes?
I thought I was as voracious a zombie fan as any until I started reading zombie comics. So much of “Romero” style zombies have been covered in the Walking Dead that anything else really just pales in comparison and seems to be an imitator. To me, a proper piece of zombie fiction has survivors dealing with the outbreak and then trying to continue to live with the ever looming threat of the undead. That’s all I ever wanted to see, and that’s why The Walking Dead was so perfect to me when it came out. Now, if you can find an original concept that hasn’t already been done, I’ll check it out. But chances are, everything I need is in The Walking Dead and nothing else is neither as good nor has the investment levels I’ve already placed in a 100 issue series.
I think that aspect of the genre is just somewhat limited and I don’t need more than one comic that covers it. When you get into the same idea done differently with things like Crossed, the writing is just significantly poorer and the author is just trying to oneup himself with progessively more and more fucked up scenes, and it comes off as poor fan fiction in my mind.
Honestly? The whole “badass chick with a katana” thing. It was so incredibly out of place in the world Kirkman had established it took me out of the book. She’s a good character in the wrong place.
The Governor scenes certainly didn’t help, but that’s a whole separate discussion, really.
I think you’re the first person I’ve heard complain about Michonne as a character. I can see your point, but at the same time why wouldn’t someone use a katana in the zombie apocalypse? That would be my go to if I knew where to find one. She also runs against the bubbly badass heroin type, she’s written pretty well and I don’t think there’s much that she does that cheapens her down to an archetype.
I don’t think she ever goes off wrecking shit on her own like she’s in Die Hard, she’s capable of doing it but smart enough to work with the group rather than go off alone (unless forced to be).
I actually like Crossed a lot. You could make the argument that it’s in the same vein as TWD, but in some ways, they are worlds away from each other. At least with Ennis’s storylines, Crossed is the scariest book I’ve ever read and extremely well-written to scare the tits off of you. TWD hasnt ever really made me feel “scared.”
I’m also surprised Michonne took you out of TWD. let’s face it, if we were ever in that situation, people would be grabbing whatever they could in order to survive, swords included. they explained how she got the weapon – it’s not like Kirkman dropped her into Rick’s world and then said “well she’s a ninja, so, deal with that.”
Normally I would agree with you about your proposition: “In short, have an end-game. Build to something. Otherwise, you’re just spinning your undead wheels.” However, re-read the first page of the first Walking Dead book. Kirkman makes it known that this series is an “ongoing story.” It’s basically because after any zombie movie he watched, he always wondered what happened NEXT, after the movie ended – what ended up happening to those people? So this story essentially never ends, and continues to follow the survivors. He has had some great story arcs (I personally loved “Fear the Hunters” which you probably missed) and has given us a ton of awesome material. But if that’s your main problem with TWD, I think you missed the point.
It’s not the katana per se, it’s that… well, he pretty much DID drop a ninja into the comic and say “deal with it.” Michonne is more Sin City than Romero and I just found my patience running out.
Right, but apparently what happens next is deja vu, which is my entire problem with the series.
Heh… guess what I should be doing next though…because it’s the only subgenre in horror I’ve still realyl not touched…. Thankfully I can’t exactly imitate myself though, so I hope I get a pass!
It’s not a comic, but the Newsflesh series of books, by Mira Grant, have been a really engrossing read thus far (I’m about 1/4 of the way through “Deadline”, the second one, and “Feed”, the first, I literally had a hard time putting down). It deals with some of the same stuff you’d expect, but it’s set in the not-too-distant future, and centers around a group of bloggers. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but, as I said, I’ve enjoyed them tremendously thus far.
Comparing Mike Norton’s work in Revival to Jim Lee is idiotic. There is almost nothing similar in the two. If you actually had any concept of art styles and the history of comic art you would clearly see that. You obviously have very little idea of what you are talking about. You may want to take the time to read a few comics before telling people who make them for a living how they should make them better.
What would make me read a zombie book? Well …
1. Goddamn quit it with the whole ‘humans are bastards’ attitude. Romero has done it since his first zombie film and it has. been done. to death. It’s no longer deep or philosophical to make the allegory that humans are just one step away from being monsters; it’s just boring. Just for a change I’d like to see a character tackle zombies with genuine optimism and good spirit, even if it was just to keep himself sane.
2. Mess around with the zombie ‘rules’. Some have done this by making the zombies ‘infected’, but what we really need is a story that messes up with the conventions we take for granted. Maybe you can actually be bit and only turn 50% of the time. Maybe zombies are immune to headshots and need to be killed some other way. Maybe they can actually still feel some emotions other than rage or hunger.
3. Set it somewhere other than America or England. The zombie survival guide by Max Brooks brings up the brilliant point at how different cultures would react to zombies. How would they react if gun ownership is extremely rare? If there was a civil war going on? If local superstitions or religions gave them different ideas of what the zombies are and how to deal with them? If the town is extremely isolated and has no choice but to fight?
4. Pick some protagonists other than the generic rag-tag bunch of people. What about a story about some doctors who slowly see the outbreak develop and desperate try to find a solution even as their own hospital starts to be over-run? A prison where the inmates and guards must work together? Hell, the Walking Dead TV series mentioned a nursing home being protected by the staff. That’s a whole story concept right there.
Basically, I could have summed this up by saying DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL AND DIFFERENT. Give me something that breaks out of the mold that the zombie genre has gotten itself into.
I actually agree with points 3 and 4 there, and you can combine them to make limited series of the stories.
it can be like the Zombie Survival Guide: Collected Storyline. Like a 6-8 issue run of different cultures dealing with the outbreak.