THE WALKING DEAD MAGAZINE 1
Publisher: Titan Magazines
Reviewer: Rob Patey (aka Optimous Douche – Ain’t It Cool News)

Come for the Kirkman interview and stay for the 100+ more pages that traverse thousands of leagues deep into the WALKING DEAD world. And don’t let the cover shot of all the TV folks fool you, there’s as many, if not more pages devoted to the comic.

I love magazines like this because I hate my co-workers. My nerdom is generally the object of ridicule inside the gleaming boardrooms and general boredom that is Business-to-Business Communications. Except for brief pockets of time each year, co-workers line up outside my office to get the deep dive into whatever comic property has jumped into other mediums.  My summer was spent articulating the back-story of AVENGERS. For the past three weeks these cheap and lazy fuckers of corporate servitude have been trying to glean whatever they can from my ten year love affair with WALKING DEAD in anticipation of the series premiere.

“How will the prison arc end?” “Who is the Governor?” “Is he a real Governor?” “Who is the samurai chick?” “Is she a real samurai?” Now, I can just place copies of WALKING DEAD MAGAZINE (WDM) outside my office and hope the pulp chum lures these ignorant information sharks away.

WDM doesn’t answer all questions; in fact it will make you pose more questions as you get deeper into the issue. The TV show has already deviated from the comic in many regards and in case you forgot what they all are, there’s a nice handy dandy check list in WDM. It also looks like from the spoilers inside, those deviations will become even greater as the show progresses.  I don’t fault the show or blame anyone, TV is a different medium and character development simply can’t happen in the same fashion. Take Carl for instance, comic characters age at the pace writers want them to. As we’ve learned time and again from TV though, children age fast and look different from week-to-week. Carl’s maturation on the show must happen significantly faster than in the comic. For my money, as long as a character ends up where they ultimately should emotionally, the translation did its job.

Here’s a brief rundown of my WDM greatest hits:

Interview with Robert Kirkman: The great furry one loves this series, THIEF OF THIEVES has been optioned, Kirkman is continuing his commitment to indie comics by expanding Skybound line of titles in 2013. All told much more entertainingly in the Kirk’s words.

The Story so Far: For all the TV troglodytes thinking of jumping to the funny books, but too cheap to buy them here’s a trade-by-trade run down.

Just Another Day: Want to know what made the Governor so damn Governey? This short story will illuminate and entertain.

 A Century of Fine Art: Issue 100 brought with it a cavalcade of covers…I own most of them (don’t judge me – I couldn’t decide). What’s interesting are the little blurbs of insight from creators like Quitely, McFarlane, Ottley and others on why they chose the moments and themes they did.

Charlie Adlard Interview: Most fascinating element, the time he takes to track the rate of decay on all the zombies. I never noticed before, but I went back-issue diving after reading this article and sho nuff’ The Dead do indeed get rottier as the issues move forward.

Choice Cuts: Breakdown of best moments for different characters each month. This month gives us a Michone spotlight…as expected given her popularity in the Season 3 build-up and interview with actress Danai Gurira inside WDM.

Basically WDM is the full access balls deep examination of anything and everything WALKING DEAD. Even if you’re the type of fan that likes the clutter of statues around the house, you’ll find article a’  plenty in WDM on new ways to piss off your wife.