WalkingDeadvolume2

The Walking Dead volume 2 by Robert Kirkman

I’m back with my review of the 2nd graphic novel of The Walking Dead, this one called Miles Behind Us. If you did check out my review of the first one read it here. Just to rehash a bit I’m fairly new to The Walking Dead comics, but I’m already really digging them. They follow a former police officer named Rick as he struggles to protect his wife and son, as well as the other survivors picked up along the way, from the hordes of zombies out to get them. Volume 2, again called Miles Behind Us, reprints issues 7-12 of the original comic series.

After the traumatic events that happened at the end of issue 6 Rick and the other survivors leave their campsite on the outskirts of Atlanta to try and find a safe have elsewhere. Along the way they end up picking up Tyreese, his daughter, and the daughter’s boyfriend. They also lose a couple of the other characters, but this is a spoiler free zone, so that is all I will say. And I don’t really consider that fact that bad things happen to characters in a piece of zombie fiction! Anyway after finding and losing what they thought was a safe place to setup Rick and the others stumble on what appears to be a paradise of sorts. Another group of survivors have a nice little setup on a farm with plenty of food and apparent security. But not everything is as it seems, which really is what makes this series so much fun.

Kirkman does such a wonderful job creating these characters and giving them such depth. If you think about how well he is able to establish the characters in a medium like a comic book, it is impressive. This is especially true of the characters that are written in for just a few issues and don’t have the luxury of long appearances to develop. But when these characters act a bit odd, or have strange ideas of what should happen, they are still believable. I know this is a bit vague, but again I’m really trying to avoid spoilers. Trust me if you read Miles Behind Us you will understand what I’m talking about.

I’ve already mentioned that some bad things happen to the characters that have been in the book since the start and that I personally was fond of. So far I have to say that Kirkman has done a wonderful job of walking that tightrope between being too protective of his characters and being over brutal. If they were dropping right and left then the deaths would loose something and become less effective. On the other hand if it appeared that the characters were safe then what would the point of the story be? There is just enough danger and loss in The Walking Dead to make at least this reader a bit nervous when things are going well for the survivors. And that is half the fun.

The art in volume 2 continues to be fairly good. Though I have to admit I wish that we would get just a bit more details in some of the kills. We do get a couple of nice panels of zombie gnawing here and there, but the gut munching is very stylized and is basically some squiggly lines… Yeah I’m being picky I suppose. Other than that one tiny gripe new artist Charlie Adlard picks up where Tony Moore left off.

One other thing that I wanted to mention about The Walking Dead volume 2 Miles Behind Us is the Afterword by Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead). It is only a page long and I’m not sure if it appears in the many other formats that the comic has been repeated in, but it is worth checking out. I hope they continue to add little touches like this to the future installments. As a fan of zombie movies and fiction I’m really digging it. I highly recommend The Walking Dead volume 2.

reviewed by John Shatzer