Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium Four by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Stefano Gaudiano

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2015-19)
Acquired October 2019
Read December 2019

The Walking Dead: Compendium Four

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Creator, Writer: Robert Kirkman

Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Inker: Stefano Gaudiano
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

Finally our long national nightmare is at an end. Finally no one has to read anymore Walking Dead comics.

I found this a volume of two halves. The first half was enlivened by the "Negan reforms" subplot, Negan being one of basically two characters I have ever given a shit about in this series.

But then Negan departs the series and it goes on to be more "Rick waffles about a thing." Rick's community discovers a massive society out in Ohio, but they are dystopian. I found a lot of this improbable. The first journey to the other society was very lengthy and protracted over weeks; by the end of the book, it felt like the characters were zipping back and forth in hours. (There's one bit where a group of characters comes to the rescue of another by coming a day later. Why would you decide one day after someone left to follow them in the case they needed help at the end of their weeks-long journey? And how come you couldn't get one group member to run a little faster and catch them up?) The new society has a rule that everyone automatically gets the same social status as they had before the zombie apocalypse... but like, why? And how would that be enforced? Why would everyone buy into it?

There's potential in finding a new group of survivors who did things differently than Rick and thus were more successful (usually they only find less successful groups), but as always Kirkman manages to strip the debate of all nuance by making the people with a different perspective slatheringly evil. And as always Rick seems like he's going to face a moral dilemma, but doesn't have to make an actual hard choice because events take it out of his hands.

The epilogue issue is dumb, too. Everyone venerates Rick, but I don't know why, because what useful thing did Rick ever actually do? In his final issue, Rick talks about how they can create a new society with potential to undue the mistakes of the old one... when we actually see the new society, it's just as shitty as ours. Well done, mate, you sure showed how good your values were.

Plus the revelation that the series's back cover blurb is an in-universe inscription on a statue of Rick is staggeringly stupid.

Anyway, I don't know why I staggered all the way to the end even though I never really liked this series except in short spurts, but it was always a quick read at least. You couldn't pay me to start watching the tv show, though.

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium Three by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Stefano Gaudiano

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2012-15) 
Acquired October 2015
Read February 2016

The Walking Dead: Compendium Three

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Creator, Writer: Robert Kirkman

Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Inker: Stefano Gaudiano
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

I have sort of a hate-love relationship with The Walking Dead. I don't know if it's Stockholm Syndrome, but I found this volume pretty enjoyable. Basically, my main problem with it at this point is all the boring characters. Like, huge swathes of the cast are interchangeable nobodies that I can't muster enough enthusiasm about to even tell them apart from one another. But Robert Kirkman must realize this himself, because Compendium Three sees a bunch of them get killed, and other just fade out of the narrative, leaving mostly the interesting and distinctive characters, as well as adding some good ones.

This is the guy who's having the most fun in the postapocalypse.
from The Walking Dead #108 (art by Charlie Adlard)

Basically, my favorites were introduced in this volume. The first is Ezekiel, ruler of a community called "The Kingdom," a guy who has set himself up as a king and has a pet tiger and knights who ride around on horses. He adds a splash of color to this usually subdued and grim series, and it is amazing every second of it. Kirkman backs off on this as the volume goes, though, unfortunately, and Ezekiel becomes more "normal." Second there's Negan. Now, Negan might be an awful person (he totally is), but he's hugely entertaining because he's entertained. He seems to treat this whole postapocalyptic survival thing as a personal lark, and he finds everything funny, and I found that funny. The Governor irked me to no end, but Negan is amazing. Mostly I think it's the cursing.

The cursing, and that I love villains who are the smartest guy in the room.
from The Walking Dead #114 (art by Charlie Adlard)

Do you know who's not amazing? Rick Grimes. There's a part of this book where everyone's like, "Rick Grimes will save us!" and I like, "Why would you think that?" Whenever Rick has a plan, it's a terrible plan. Yet he's the leader, I guess because everyone knows he's the main character. I can't decide if this is Kirkman's commentary on a certain type of straight white cismale, or if Kirkman's just bad at writing Rick as a good leader.

Like, why is anyone surprised by this? Has Rick Grimes ever known what to do? Has he ever had a good plan?
from The Walking Dead #98 (art by Charlie Adlard)

The story seems to be shifting, from one of sheer survival to one about rebuilding, though the ending promises some wrinkles in that. This has potential, though so far, it's pretty un-nuanced: whenever someone disagrees with Rick or Maggie's decisions, Kirkman writes them as sniveling, evil idiots. It'd be nice to see how the new society emerging here handles disagreements between reasonable people.

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium Two

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2008-12)
Acquired August 2013
Read September 2013

The Walking Dead: Compendium Two

Creator, Writer: Robert Kirkman
Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

So help me, I think I'm actually coming to like The Walking Dead. Not that I like Rick Grimes-- well, actually I don't mind Rick as a character, I just don't get why all the characters think he should be the "leader" because he is demonstrably, factually bad at it. C'mon, Rick, whine a little bit more about how tough it is being the patriarch. I'm starting to realize this book is about Rick's, and even moreso Carl's, descent into complete and utter monstrousness. And I'm okay with that.

But when the survivors get into that D.C.-area gated community, the book suddenly becomes a very interesting examination of how you enforce societal rule. How do you make someone stop from beating his wife after the apocalypse? There's not always easy answers, though I feel like the book often pull back from that point, with people being killed off when it makes the writing a little more convenient and less problematic. But when it goes there, when Rick holds a gun to another man's head, it's gold.

If I was writing this, I'd end it with them settling down here, and if I was smart, I'd quit reading it now. But I'm neither, so I'll be there for Compendium Three in 2016.

Review: The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 2003-08)
Acquired January 2012
Read March 2013

The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Creator, Writer, Letterer: Robert Kirkman
Penciler, Inker, Gray Tones: Tony Moore
Penciler, Inker: Charlie Adlard
Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn
Letterer: Rus Wooton

What I really want is for The Walking Dead to come to an end, but that's the one thing I can never do. The forty-eighth issues collected here are relentless, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. Characters are killed off, maimed, tortured, &c. in a way that's rare in serial fiction-- but you soon learn not to get to close to any of the characters as a result. (Except for poor, perpetually subjugated and neglected Carol. She was my favorite.) Luckily(?), there's an eternal flood of new characters to come in as old ones depart, so that there's always someone that Rick Grimes can feel bad about when they're killed.

But this means it will all never end. What I want is for the characters to successfully build a new civilization and fly off into the sunset, utopia in their wake. But The Walking Dead is very specifically design to stop that from happening: it's about the impossibility of human kindness in these circumstances. Or perhaps, all circumstances. No matter what you do, someone else will come along and screw it up. For the series to end, positively or negatively, would be dishonest, so it must continue to lurch forward from contrived plot to contrived plot, aimless like the zombies that litter its pages. And like the main characters often do, I feel like I should end it all because nothing worthwhile is ever going to happen... yet I'll continue to slog through until the bitter end, because knowing is better than not knowing, even when there's nothing good to know.