“In a World ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.”

The Walking Dead made its debut in 2003, and over the past seven years, writer Robert Kirkman and illustrator Tony Moore have crafted a World that Thomas Hobbes would appreciate…a World in which life is cheap: nasty, brutal and short.  The question they asked themselves in moulding this world: “How do people deal with extreme situations and how do those same situations change people?”  What better way to explore the psyche of society than to explore the reactions of everyday people to an event so horrifying and final that every societal norm we take for granted comes into question?

That event… Zombie apocalypse. 

Over the course of 13 graphic novels, Kirkman and Moore have introduced a variety of characters trying to deal with everyday life in a World that is no longer everyday.  Centered around Rick Grimes, formerly a police officer in rural Kentucky, The Walking Dead tells the story of a ragtag group of survivors and their quest not so much for answers as  for mere survival in what could only be described as life after the end of the world.  Rick becomes a natural leader in this world, and The Walking Dead chronicles his attempts to keep a small segment of society alive under impossible conditions.  His story contains every element of human nature, from courage and duty to  cowardice and treachery, love of life to suicide…pretty much every human emotion and quality…or  inferiority that one can think of.  Every  facet of the human condition (whether enlightened or banal) has been explored at one point or another within the series.

My favourite feature of  The Walking Dead?

You never know where it’s going to go.  No one is safe.  Whether a character has been there from the start, or is simply a plot device, any and all characters are expendable.  And that is simply refreshing.  No cookie cutter heroes and villains…simply humanity, with all the warts.

So, it was with great excitement that I found out the other day that The Walking Dead has been translated into an original television series, premiering on October 31st, 2010, (Otherwise known as Hallowe’en) on AMC 

Thank you Frank Darabont!