The Walking Dead Compendium One

After the ambiguous ending to the TV show for The Walking Dead, I couldn't help but want to see what would happen next. Sure, the TV show is different from the comic, I get that, but still there's so many similarities that I immediately started reading through the comic to see what might happen.

The Compendium #1 covers the first 48 issues of the comic - up until after the prison arc. Everything happens so fast compared to the show, that it took some getting used to. This was the first comic I've read, but I can say it was addictive from the start. Even re-reading parts I'd watched in the show and determining the small differences between the comic was a lot of fun.

This is the most disgusting piece of mysogynistic trash I've ever read. I don't think Robert Kirkman has ever met a woman in real life, and he definitely doesn't view women as equals or quality individuals who can contribute positively to society.

Aside from that, there was horribly cheesy, awkwardly paced, and incredibly unrealistic and forced dialogue.

The worst (best?) example of telling and not showing I've ever read.

Typos, for real.

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Here are two reviews that say the things I want to say better than I can:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1558593435?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2570187542?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

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Here's an excerpt from an article as well:

My biggest problem with the comics is the general trend toward an essentialist view of gender roles. Kirkman seems to think that men and women are fundamentally different in ways that go beyond the physical/anatomical, and those differences include men being generally more action-oriented, better leaders, and more rational, while the women are more passive, emotional, and better at domestic tasks (cooking, laundry, sewing clothes, taking care of children). There are of course a few exceptions. Amy is a good shooter, while Tyreese can't shoot to save his life. But these are just that: exceptions.

The feeling I get from the books is that men are meant to be leaders while the women are meant to be in the kitchen. And the fact that Kirkman keeps saying “I'm only being realistic in terms of what I think would happen in a zombie apocalypse” suggests that this is what he sees as the natural order of things, rather than just social constructs. If you push the logic of the comics far enough, you could argue that all the social advances in women's rights are what's artificial - all it's gonna take is a cataclysmic event like a zombie apocalypse to return things to the way they were always meant to be. 

http://irrelevantcomics.blogspot.com/2010/11/sexism-in-walking-dead-ongoing.html