The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye

Robert Kirkman

Days Gone Bye is the first installment of what Robert Kirkman promises will be an epic graphic novel. (As I write this, Days Gone Bye has been out for less than a year, and vol. 3 is due to come out any day now; Kirkman is really cranking away on this one.) While it opens with one of the most common scenes in modern zombie lit, Kirkman's stated intention is very different than much of what we've seen recently, and at least in the first installment, the practice goes hand in hand with the theory.

Rick Grimes is a Kentucky cop who gets himself shot at the opening of the story. He wakes up from a coma some time later to find a deserted hospital. Upon searching, he finds that the walking dead of the title have pretty much taken over the planet. Rick heads for Atlanta, seeking his wife and child, and meets up with a group of survivors. While zombies form the frame of the story, what's at the core of this book is the dynamics between the survivors; the zombies are just the spice to their meat.

This is exceptional stuff. If the series continues to be this good, I can easily see it taking a place beside Watchmen on my very, very short shelf of the graphic novels I liked so much I actually went out and bought copies.