Dave Schaafsma's Reviews > The Walking Dead, Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye

So I am on record as having become sick of zombies (somehow appropriate, yes?) and read the first three volumes in, what, 2013 and gave this first volume two stars. The universe seems to have converged on me in two ways to give this another go: I have a son who urges me to recheck it all out; he's on volume (shudder) 21 at the moment, is watching the series and playing the video game, but out of respect and fatherly duty and wanting to make literary connections with him. . .

and then there's the fact of my having seen the 1968 The Night of the Living Dead, which became a cult classic (and maybe still is; I watched it once with a friend JB in Chicago at a film festival in the early seventies, laughing at parts of it (low budget, ad-libbed lines, poorly paid "actors," and so on), and lo and behold, who was behind us laughing with us, was George Romero himself, true story! But I do love the film, I really do! I might have been laughing in part due to several Scotches. . . So to H, me bouncing boy, and George, trying to give Robert Kirkman's story a fair shake.

So, Kirkman opens this long, never-ending saga with a warning that this will go on forever, and it sorat has, as he admits he will not kill off one main character, Rick Grimes, a cop. Kirkman makes it clear his story is character-driven, and it is, as we meet him, his family, his partner, and other survivors working together to survive, that allegorical through-line of dystopian fiction. I like Rick okay, he's earnest. . . and then there are the generic zombies.

I rated this two stars 10 years ago, and I'll say 3 this time. When I gave up ten years ago after 2-3 volumes, friends here encouraged me to read on, let the characters live a little, it gets better and better, but I gave up. This time I'll stay with it longer.