Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain -- grim zombie comic has a glimmer of hope

Today I picked up and devoured the latest collection in the gripping, relentlessly savage horror comic, The Walking Dead, which details the travails of the few survivors of a plague of zombiism that destroys America. The Walking Dead is easily the grimmest thing I've read since On the Beach, and it's magnificently plotted, the very definition of un-put-downable. Imagine 28 Days Later, but from outside the safe zone, a world where no government has restructured society and is working systematically to put down the biters. Imagine Dawn of the Dead, but the cavalry never arrives, and they spend the rest of their lives dodging the zombies.

I think I like this volume the best of any of them so far. It's emotionally wrenching, exploring the tenderness and the emotional scars that the child survivors face, and best of all, the authors give us a tiny, eensy ray of hope by suggesting that, sometime further into the story, we may find out what causes zombiism and what can be done to end the plague. It's a tiny thread of hope, but I'm clutching it to my chest like a life-preserver. Volume ten, come soon!

The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain

Link to Volume 8 Link to Volume 7, Link to Volume 6, Link to Volume 5, Link to Volume 4, Link to Volume 3, Link to Volume 2, Link to Volume 1

• [RWY]

  If you like The Walking Dead then you may like a new zombie series called “ROTTEN,” from my good friend Mark Rahner. It debuts in May and is described as “52 filthy pages of action, horror and intrigue in the old West!” Sounds good to me.
  http://www.markrahner.com/therawnerve/comic-books.html

• [ryangoff]

  I’m sure some people think this is great, but I read the first 5 or 6 single issues of Walking Dead and I thought it was terrible. I seriously mocked it, but then got angry at how bad it was. Is there anyone else out there who hated the beginning of this series? I’m hoping it’s like one of those TV show where you have to say, “Just lurch your way through the first few episiodes, and the rest will blow your mind.” Is there any truth in that, or should I not bother picking it up again?

• [freshyill]

  I follow the individual issues, and I can say things really get rolling right after Vol. 9 ends. They’re finally getting moving after the long stay at the prison and they’re finding that it’s a messed up world out there.

  It’s too early to say for sure, but I trust these new people. Abraham seems legit, but you never can tell.

• [PeterNBiddle]

  IIRC in the documentary (the original Dawn of the Dead, not the remake) the cavalry doesn’t arrive, either. Don’t they lose the mall, Peter dies, and then they take off in the helicopter with no sure place to land… hopeful in the sense that they are alive and airborne, but that’s it.

• [Anonymous]

  Looks like this would make an excellent HBO series…and word on options or what may be in the works?

• [druidbros]

  TWD is a great read because the author knows how to tell a story. I was lucky enough to have a comic store owner who knew what I would like and I have been collecting it since the beginning.

  Bbronx you better order all the other volumes now because you are going to go through withdrawal after only the first two collections. Its like a Saturday morning serial in comic book form (or to those who dont know what that entails, think ‘Raiders of the Lost Arc’ the first 10 minutes).

• [bbonyx]

  Vols 1 and 2 just arrived this morning and are sitting next to my laptop right here on the coffee table. About to dive into this after months of recommendations here on BB. Can’t wait to see if it lives up to my expectations.

• [Cruftbox]

  The patience to wait for trade paperbacks is beyond me.

  I make my regular Wednesday pilgrimage to the comic book store to pick them up as the individual issues are released.

• [bassemb]

  Thank you for turning me on to this, months ago. And thank you for the wonderfully spoiler-free blurb. Just the right amount of enticing!

• [voivoed]

  First, let me thank you for turning me on to that series, it is absolutely fantastic, I’ve been reading it since you mentioned it here the first time.

  But I’m not sure about that glimmer of hope.

  **** The following might be a very, very mild spoiler, so proceed at your own risk ****

  I think it’s a setup, look at the telephone deal and the talking to the dead boyfriend, for example, it’s too similar except that for the other guy it’s his radio. We’ll see, but I’m not hoping for anything good to come out of that. :-)

• [Deadmeat]

  I also wanted to thank Cory for recommending this series.

  Vol. 8 was crazy, can’t wait to grab this one.

• [Hypnoid]

  I have seriously mixed feelings about this comic. I don’t think it deserves the rave reviews, but yet I keep reading it and want to find out what happens next, despite finishing each issue somewhat disappointed. The writing earns raves, but a lot of the dialogue is clunky exposition-there’s seriously a bit in which a whole bunch of characters have met, had time to build a fire and prepare a meal, then find themselves saying “I just realized we haven’t really introduced ourselves…”
  The art looks great-but once I realized Rick’s gun apparently moves from one hand (and hip) to the other and back several times within a page, I couldn’t enjoy it as much.

• [Milkfat]

  Can’t wait to read it! I’ve loved the others.

• [Daemon]

  Somebody really needs to reinvent the zombie apocalypse thing. It’s been done to death.

• [Roach]

  The Walking Dead is a great comic.

  I think that you might be getting your zombie movies confused, though. In Dawn of the Dead, no cavalry arrives – only a pack of insane bikers that reintroduce the chaos that the four had hoped to escape by hiding in the mall. In one version, two of them do fly off to a deserted island, but that’s on their own power. Were you thinking of Night of the Living Dead? There the cavalry arrives in a sense, but not in time and with no good effect.

  And in 28 Days Later, no government is systematically putting down the biters. The British government is totally gone, its few representatives are military men gone barbaric, and when the government does show up at the end, it’s after the enraged are dying out because of their disease. Were you thinking of the (vastly inferior) 28 Weeks Later? There they start in a Green Zone away from the zombies, but that doesn’t last long.

  Sorry, but I’m a bit zombie obsessed, as I’m sure you can tell.