Tag Archives: tv series

Review: The Walking Dead Volume 1 (by Robert Kirkman)

Posted on by Arleigh

One of the geek properties that had been building a major hype and buzz at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con was Image Comics and Robert Kirkman’s long-running and critically-acclaimed zombie series, The Walking Dead.  It’s time at the Con didn’t just push the title to a new batch of fans, but also made a major showing at it’s very own panel with the cast and crew of AMC’s tv series adaptation of the comic book. It would be an understatement to say that by the  time The Con was over the series (both comic book and the upcoming tv series) walked away a clear winner and put the property into hype/buzz overdrive.

With the series set to premiere on AMC this coming October 2010 I thought it was high-time that I went back to my reviews of the collected trade paperbacks of the series. Each trade paperback collection were 6-issues long and usually started a current story-arc or finished an on-going one. This comic book series is one of the few in the market currently running which could was able to keep releasing its trades in 6-issue collected formats and not lose any impact that particular arc had when read as single-issues. It was by finding the first trade that I was initially introduced to Kirkman’s zombie opus.

It was 2005 and I was what one might call a lapsed comic book fan. I had burned myself out on the neverending flood of superhero titles even as independent ones quickly got cancelled, died out or just outright didn’t end but left its readers hanging. But it took a passing glance of The Walking Dead‘s first trade volume to get my interest in comic books rekindled. Kirkman’s foray into creating the zombie film that never ends made comic books fun for me again. The fact that Kirkman didn’t jump onto the fast-zombie bandwagon that became the rage of the mid-2000’s was a major plus in my eyes.

Using the same slow, shambling zombies that George A. Romero first made popular with Night of the Living Dead and its subsequent sequels, Kirkman continued the zombie story where Romero usually ended his films. All those times people have wondered what happened to those who survived in zombie films need not imagine anymore. Kirkman has created a believable world where the dead have risen to feast on the living, but has concentrated more on the human dynamic of survival in the face of approaching extinction.

I won’t say that the story-arc collected in this first volume has little or no zombies seen, but they’ve taken on more as an apocalyptic prop. One can almost substitute some other type of doom in place of zombies and still get a similar effect (as was done in Brian K Vaughn’s equally great series, Y: The Last Man). What Kirkman has done was show how humanity’s last survivors were now constantly, desperately trying to adapt to a familiar world through unfamiliar circumstances. Characters from the start make the sort of mistakes regular people would make when they don’t know exactly everything that was happening around them. Instead of chiding these people as one reads their story, we sympathize and hope for their continued survival.

The artwork by Tony Moore is another reason why people should check out this first volume. While it is only in this volume (the first 6-issues of the series which is now deep into the 70’s) Tony Moore’s art puts the horrific in the story Kirkman has written. His zombies and their look were quite detailed and for fans of the series his departure after issue 6 and staying to just make the covers to each single-issue has rubbed them the wrong way. While I subscribe to the opposite viewpoint that Moore’s work was a nice bonus to bring in the readers in the end his artwork was gravy to what was already a fulfilling story that would’ve been as effective if the artwork was mediocre at best. It’s a good thing that follow-up and series regular artist Charlie Adlard more than holds his own in drawing the rest of the series.

This first volume was a great beginning which should automatically pull in the hardcore zombie fans (pretty much any of those types should’ve been reading the books for years now) while giving newbie fans to the zombie genre a reason not to dismiss it as just another gorefest lacking in drama and great storytelling. Already Kirkman has done more to realizing the universe Romero created than a lot of the hack filmmakers who have taken Romero’s idea and cannibalized it for their own profit. I consider The Walking Dead as a must-read for anyone looking to find something different from all the costumed superhero titles. It is also a great starting point for those awaiting the start of the tv series, but have never read the original comic book source.

The Walking Dead – Motion Comic (AMC)

Posted on by Arleigh

With Comic-Con over the hype surrounding the tv adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse comic book series has reached stratosphere status. The 6-episode first season was already one of the most anticipated new shows of the upcoming fall season from just the fans and geek community talking about it nonstop in the internet, but with it’s unveiling at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con the mainstream press has latched itself onto the series. The common reaction to the series at the panel in Hall H seemed to be a unanimous positive one.

Character photos, Drew Struzan posters and new trailers have added to the hype. The comic book series has hit it’s milestone 75th issue. Sales of the comic and it’s collected softcover and hardback graphic novels have seen a spike in sales. AMC has added to the series’ website a taste of the the comics for people to get an idea of what to expect from the series. This motion comic of the first issue of The Walking Dead really captures the horror and hopelessness of the world Kirkman has created and Daabont plans to show up on the TV screen.

Source: The Walking Dead on AMC

The Walking Dead finally gets its Lori Grimes

Posted on by Arleigh

It looks like Andrew Lincoln’s character of Rick Grimes for AMC’s upcoming horror tv series, The Walking Dead, has finally found it’s wife. According to Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly the role of Lori Grimes has finally been cast with Sarah Wayne Callies (previously seen in the now-cancelled Prison Break). She joins Andrew Lincoln to form the husband-and-wife in the tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s popular and critically-acclaimed zombie apocalypse comic book series.

I like this choice in casting not just because Sarah Wayne Callies actually looks like the character, but her previous role in Prison Break looks to have been the perfect practice role for the part of Lori Grimes. Rick Grimes’ wife Lori could only be described as very troubled and keeping secrets of her own during her time away from Rick at the beginning of the series. While I wouldn’t call the character as hysterical she does pose some instability in the group dynamics which Rick has to carefully navigate if he has any chance of keeping his small group of survivors from dying out.

As more and more names get announced as becoming part of the show’s cast it looks like the series (6-episodes ordered for the moment) continues to move towards it’s early summer production start date. The Walking Dead looks to be one of the 2010  fall schedule’s most-anticipated new shows and here’s to hoping Darabont and crew’s initial 6-episodes hit it out of the park and earn the show more ordered episodes.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

The Walking Dead finally gets it’s Rick Grimes

Posted on by Arleigh

The good folks over at The Hollywood Reporter have reported that Frank Darabont’s tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book, The Walking Dead, have finally found the actor to play the series’ lead protagonist, Rick Grimes. The actor chosen came out of left field as his name was never even one people were clued in on. Fan favorites like Peter Krause and Mark Pellegrino were not even seen or heard having tried out for the lead role. Other names like Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica’s Lee “Apollo” Adama) and Johnny Lee Miller (Eli Stone and Hackers) were also mentioned as having tried out for the role with the latter seen as the front-runner.

So, it’s seen as a surprise by many following the production of The Walking Dead to see the name Andrew Lincoln come up as the actor chosen to play Rick Grimes. The UK actor has worked in mostly shows and films in his native UK w/ Love Actually being the more recognizable of those he’s worked on. I think the choice was, and is, a good one. This is literally an unknown actor to US audiences so it will be easier for suspension of disbelief to be achieved for those watching.

While the reaction to this news is mostly one of guarded optimism there’s a very tiny but vocal group that seem to cry foul at this choice just for the fact that Andrew Lincoln will be a British-actor playing an American from the South. I think fans at times just think that dream choices for roles in their favorite stories should be the only ones chosen to play those roles whether they actually want to take on the role or not, or if they’re even good for the role.

For the detractors I say give the man a chance to get into the role before you put the man down. Oh yeah, one other thing…just be glad the show is actually being down and with strong creative people behind it. Put the fanboy/girl hat into storage.

Source: THR

Lost Final Season: Sink or Swim?

Posted on by Arleigh

February 2, 2010 marks the date which begins the final season of one of TV’s biggest pop culture phenomena of the past decade. I will begin by saying that I was never into Lost not because I didn’t like the show or even thought it was bad. I never got into it because I missed the entire first season. While I heard people gradually get into the show by the time season 2 rolled around and it had become the water-cooler show I knew I was too late.

Shows like Lost is the kind of show which is never easy to get behind even from the get-go with it’s over-encompassing mythological story arc not to mention several running subplots which bisects and even joins the main story. I knew that I couldn’t give the show it’s proper due  by rushing into watching the first season. It’s the same reason why I hesistate to recommend the best show on TV ever to people who never watched it from the beginning. I speak of HBO’s The Wire. These kinds of shows needs and requires an almost slavish like attention and loyalty from it’s early adopters.

While I may not have adopted and watched Lost I have bought all the DVD sets and will buy the 6th season as well. I do this so I can watch the show once it is done using my own timetable and also giving it the attention it deserve. Some would say that the show will have lost some of it’s mystery since people have been talking about it to me or I have read thing about it on the internet. To be honest I have a knack for tuning out such things if I have to. All I know about the show is that people on a plane crashed on an island with a polar bear and a smoke monster. So yeah, the show hasn’t been spoiled for me.

Now, with this 6th season about to begin I can see the anticipation building amongst people I know who literally love this show. It is all they can talk about. It is this kind of devotion I wish other shows whose run ended too soon would’ve gotten (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, Firefly, Jericho and many more). I haven’t seen this kind of devotion to a TV show by so many people since Chris Carter’s The X-Files. That was another show which gradually became a pop culture sensation after the first season and just kept building and building until it reached its final season.

I see many similarities between the two shows. Both have labyrinthine mythologies which comprise the bulk of its main story. Both shows have a small core of characters whose motivations are clear but everyone else around them steeped in mystery. Pop culturally both shows have ingrained themselves in the mass audience’s TV watching habits. Both shows have been well-written with some of the best characters on TV of the this generation.

With this final season of Lost I bring up one thing that may distinguish it from Carter’s long-running serialized show. J.J. Abram’s show has a chance to go out swimmingly. It has a chance to deliver on it’s legions of fan expectations. Many are already expecting this final season to be the best of the whole series and will want nothing less than a “big bang” of a series finale. While I think it would be great if Lost went out with a bang and not a whimper the way The X-Files did in its final season, I still caution people to temper their excitement and expectations. A show with this much hype throughout its time on TV almost seemed destined to underwhelm and disappoint a large portion of it’s fans. I use the series finale of Battlestar Galactica as a prime example.

That show from Ron D. Moore was another show which built a loyal and fanatical fanbase with its complex storyline which reached an almost religious myth level. When the finale finally aired there were equal amounts of satisfaction and major disappointment. The ending of that show, for some, just didn’t satisfy their expectations and certainly left questions unanswered.

Will Lost avoid this pitfall? Only the next couple months will answer that question and for Abrams’ and his team of writers they better hope that the ending they have for the show will not sink the series in the end, but let it swim into TV legend.