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Rating: Zombies haven't always been among the most well-known and (so to speak) appreciated "monsters." After the success of various films by George A. Romero, they fell into the oblivion of the general public, although they remained cited in more or less cult works like the Italian films of Lucio Fulci or Lamberto Bava. From a literary standpoint, it was even worse: very few have attempted to deal with these walking beings, and we can proudly say that our Tiziano Sclavi is undoubtedly among those who focused the most on them, thanks to the diabolical Xabaras (father?) of Dylan Dog, a mad scientist in search of the recipe for a conscious eternal life, not devoid of reason like that of the classic living dead.
Starting from 2003, however, a young American man managed to bring our dear demented cannibals back into the limelight: Robert Kirkman. In the comic book series "The Walking Dead," Kirkman revisits the stereotypes linked to the living dead but makes the Zombies themselves mere extras in his story, pretexts to tell about the all-too-human beastliness perpetrated by the survivors on their vegetative companions.
The success of the comic thus led to this television series splendidly directed by Frank Darabont (a highly appreciated director of masterpieces like "The Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption," both adaptations of novels written by that genius Stephen King), aided by excellent screenwriters and skilled makeup artists. The TV series partially picks up but does not replicate Kirkman's comics. Only the very first episode of the first season (the so-called "pilot episode") is practically identical to the first volume of the comic. Subsequently, the works travel parallelly, maintaining the same direction and intersecting from time to time. This is probably due to the fact that the comic series is, in certain passages, too violent to make an impression on the vast audience that watches the TV series, prompting the screenwriters to make the product less raw and a bit more palatable.
But let's move on to discuss more specifically the work reviewed here: the story begins with police officer Rick Grimes waking up in a hospital after a comatose state following a gunshot to the chest. In the room, he sees no one, and, with difficulty, he stands up, opens the door wide, and comes face to face with a Zombie. After the first five minutes (or, if you prefer, the first 15 pages of the comic), the thoughts that come to mind are: "how boring! The usual story of someone fleeing from Zombies and saving the world" and "How did they all become Zombies? And how did he survive?" etc., etc. Then, little by little, the true intent of the work emerges: to narrate the change of people, of society, in case everything civilization is based on (laws, money, institutions) suddenly disappears. And how do these people change? Kirkman (and Darabont) tell us by dissecting the personalities of the various characters that make up the cast, characters whom we meet after Grimes manages to reunite with his family, which escaped the disaster thanks to the help of his former colleague and friend Shane. The imposition of "the law of survival" will force all these people to change; there will be clashes, arguments, murders, lies, betrayals; in short, all the worst of human nature. The Zombies, in all this, play a marginal role and only in some cases come back forcefully to take someone away from the scene or to spark conflicts among the survivors. The desire and need to protect his family will lead the champion of justice (pre-the advent of the living dead) Rick Grimes to go against what were his fundamental moral precepts and to carve his way through living dead and dying living to survive the harsh grind of existence. Fortunately, here and there, we also witness some proof of the maintenance of humanity, thanks in particular to the wise old men Hershel Greene and Dale Horvath, who try to quell the increasingly animalistic instincts of their fellow travelers. There will be no shortage of plot twists, with the loss (à la "Oz") of numerous main characters to whom, I'm sure, you will become attached.
However, I don't want to go on too long and spoil too much; if you haven't seen any episodes yet, well, I recommend you do so as soon as possible because it's worth it. If you have seen the series but haven't read the comic, I re-recommend you do so (as long as you have a stomach resistant to horrible brutalities) because it is even more worth it and it lays bare human nature still restrained by current civilization even more ruthlessly. If you have both read the comic and watched the series, then I can only congratulate you; you've chosen a great way to spend some of your time...
Not to mention that in case of a zombie epidemic, you'll know how to survive ;)
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