Todays Web-comic is written by returning guest Yama Rahyar.
So, AMC saw the ratings for The Walking Dead premiere and shit themselves in their frenzy to sign 500 more episodes over the next 30 years, or something. OK, fine. You can't argue with success, and as a zombie enthusiast, I can't really complain. But I do think it's reasonable to start a conversation about The Walking Dead's inherent flaws. Especially because they beg some important questions about the direction of the genre.
Most zombie fiction still takes place in a world where zombie fiction never existed. Where George Romero apparently chose a different line of work and we didn't get three decades of movies, books, comic books, TV series, art work, fan fiction and facile Halloween costumes preparing us for the undead apocalypse. Sherriff Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma to a gutted hospital and a chained supply room spray-painted with "DON'T OPEN: DEAD INSIDE." Pale, rotting arms reach out when he approaches. Days later, barricaded inside an abandoned house in his old neighborhood, he still needs Token Black Guy to spell it out for him.
Simply put, I think we've reached a point where the obligatory 40 minutes of completely bewildered "WHA HAPPEN?!" are handicapping the genre's ability to develop characters and move plots forward. In the real world, it took the entire human race about 15 seconds to figure out that terrorists working for an organization called Al Qaeda had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center. I'd like to think that if the dead started coming back to life and attacking the living, we'd put two and two together a little more punctually.
Yama
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