This is a post in which I try to explain why I love The Walking Dead so much, and why I agonised for such a long time over whether to read the comic book its based on.
Let me start by saying I love horror films. Even the really bad, horribly cliched, terribly acted ones. It's my favourite film genre. If a film has vampires, zombies or a dozen increasingly more gory death scenes, chances are I'm going to like it. I don't tend to be scared by horror films; I find the odd one unsettling, some might make me feel a bit queasy and there's the odd one that gets me with a good jump scare (1). I've been watching horror films from quite a young age, thanks to my mother allowing me to watch such things as Alien (1979) when they were shown on TV. One of the reasons that film has never really scared me is because I'd already seen Spaceballs (1987) (2). It was watching horror films that got me interested in special effects, in particular, special effects make-up. My mum bought me a children's encyclopedia that came as a part-work and one entry was all about this stuff. It described how the special effects in The Exorcist (1973) had been done and it sounded like incredible stuff. Due to the 1984 Video Recordings Act, I didn't actually get to see them until the film was re-released in cinemas in 1998....
One of my favourite 'zombie' films is 28 Days Later. The opening scenes are simply incredible: The film's protagonist, Jim, wakes up from a coma in a London hospital. He finds the place - and the city - completely deserted, and it's evident something has gone very, very wrong. He stumbles across and is attacked by a group of what appear to be zombies - ones that can run very fucking fast - but is rescued. His rescuers explain to a confused Jim what's happened whilst he was in his coma, and that the group were "infected" with a virus called "Rage".
When I sat down to watch the pilot episode of The Walking Dead back in 2010, I knew very little about it other than it was about zombies. I expected I'd like it just for that reason though. I didn't get very far in. Rick wakes up from a coma - just like Jim, in a hospital - just like Jim, starts stumbling around - just like Jim, and find the world has apparently gone to shit - just like Jim. I turned that rip-off off. When Sophia's fate was revealed in Season Two, I remember my friends who have been fans of The Walking Dead since the beginning, were surprised to learn that I wasn't watching it. I never planned to, based on how I'd felt watching that pilot episode. Things changed.
Towards the end of last year, we got TiVo. Home alone and bored one day, with nothing I felt like watching showing on any channel I decided to look for something to watch 'On Demand'. When I brought up the menu the suggestion in the bottom left-hand corner was The Walking Dead. This was completely random, because the box was brand new - we hadn't given anything the 'thumbs up' yet so it wasn't based on what we liked to watch. I was vaguely aware that the fifth series was due to start soon, and given there were only four to catch up on if I liked it this time, I figured I'd give it another go. Whilst the similarity of those opening scenes in the pilot episode to those of 28 Days Later still struck me, for some inexplicable reason, it didn't anger me the way it had before; I saw it as an homage. I kept watching. By the end of that pilot episode I was hooked, and I just had to find out what was going to happen next.
When I say "I was hooked," I mean I was literally glued to the screen - I couldn't take my eyes off it. Usually when I'm watching TV I've got one eye on something else - Twitter, Candy Crush, a book or magazine... this blog. With The Walking Dead, I couldn't bring myself to look away. I didn't want to. I still don't. It's the only TV programme I've ever watched that has consistently managed to keep my undivided attention. Even now I'm watching old episodes back with my husband so he can get caught up, I find it difficult to focus on anything else. Since I've been watching Season Five, I've had to deal with ad-breaks, which seem to occur far too frequently and at the most inconvenient moments - that's when I do my live-tweeting of the show.
I didn't realise The Walking Dead was based on a comic book at first. Ordinarily, I like to read the book before I watch something because, if I do it the other way around, I tend to find that not only do I not enjoy the book but I end up liking the film a little less. This happened with Jackie Brown, The Shining and LA Confidential, although the latter still remains one of my all-time favourite non-horror films. A notable exception to this is Sin City. Seeing that film prompted me to read the graphic novel and I absolutely fell in love with it. It was obvious the book had been used as a ready-made storyboard and I think the way every single frame had been so faithfully recreated for the film is what made me adore them both.
I was wary about reading The Walking Dead comic book because I knew some significant changes had been made and I was concerned this might affect my enjoyment of them both - I didn't want to end up hating a programme I loved. So I decided I wouldn't read it.
Two of the things I like the most about The Walking Dead are Greg Nicotero's incredible special effects make-up and the character Daryl Dixon. He doesn't appear in the comics. I read that Norman Reedus originally auditioned for the part of Merle and didn't get it, but they liked him that much they actually wrote the character of Daryl for him. That's awesome - but the absence of my favourite character was another thing that put me off reading the comic book.
I didn't actually like Daryl to begin with - I felt he acted like a petulant child in the first series, like a grumpy teenager in the second. He started to change towards the end of Season Two and, by the mid-way point of Season Three, he'd matured a lot and I started to like him a lot more. The turning point was when it was revealed he had been a victim of child abuse - so was I. This aspect of Daryl's past is something he'd never come to terms with, and it's only in Season Five that it looks like he's finally ready to confront it. This is something I identify with, having never really come to terms with my own abuse, and watching him go through it has been cathartic. I do feel a very strong connection to the character. It could be this, or it could be something about Norman Reedus' face, or just because it's somehow more upsetting to see a man cry, but I always burst into tears every time Daryl cries!
I came across an article online which was asking fans of The Walking Dead who they thought would make the best new villain following the demise of The Governor. There seemed to be a lot of comments from people who thought it should be Negan, and a lot saying it shouldn't because they wouldn't be able to do the character justice on TV. Because I had decided I wouldn't ever read the comic book, and because I knew that anything I read that was a potential spoiler wasn't necessarily one due to the fact some huge changes had already been made (3), and especially given there were major characters in the TV programme that weren't in the comic book, I decided to read up on Negan: he's a foul-mouthed sociopath who, in the comics, beats Glen to death with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire whilst cracking jokes. Hmm... maybe it's not possible to bring him to life on TV! A trivia note at the end of the article I read noted that the character was based on a particular actor but that Robert Kirkman refused to say who in case that actor wasn't able to play him if they ever did include him in the show. I thought of Henry Rollins for some reason - I'm assuming it's because of how bad-ass he was in Wrong Turn 2 (2007), and because some of the artwork I'd seen of the character reminded me vaguely of him.
Season Five contains some of the most shocking violence I've ever seen on TV. The opening episode, 'No Sanctuary', contains some horrifying, graphic scenes reminiscent of Hostel (2005). Episode two, 'Strangers', ends with one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen on television. The third episode, 'Four Walls and a Roof' includes an execution so shocking and violent it makes some horror films look tame! Bringing Negan in didn't seem quite so impossible. I started contemplating reading the comic book.
I thought about other adaptations I've seen where I loved both book and film equally. Perhaps the best example is The Shawshank Redemption (1994). The Stephen King novella upon which it is based is one of the best things I've ever read. I was hugely excited about seeing the film. There are some fairly significant differences between book and film, but they didn't bother me whilst I was watching it at all - I found it simply captivating. Even the ending is slightly different - and I didn't care. There's a fade to black right at the point where the book ends and I'd already started to get up to leave, but that scene continues and I ended up sitting back down again, in floods of tears: it was beautiful. The Shawshank Redemption was adapted for the screen by Frank Darabont... who is responsible for developing The Walking Dead for television.
Another book to film adaptation where I like both versions equally is Harry Potter. What's notable about this series is how heavily involved JK Rowling was with the process. The same could be said about the writer of The Walking Dead: Robert Kirkman acts as Executive Producer and has written several episodes.
When I re-read the Negan article recently, I noticed the trivia at the end has been updated to note that Charlie Adlard has confirmed the character is based on Henry Rollins. I'm maybe reading too much into it, but I think that either means he doesn't want to or can't do it, or that the producers have decided they can't make the character work on screen, or it means he's going to play Negan when they introduce his character to the show... that latter possibility got me a little bit excited. It made me want to know more about Negan. It made me want to read about Negan.
I've read that the producers of The Walking Dead have said the comic book has provided them with enough material for twelve seasons and, unlike the writers of Lost, I do get the sense they know exactly where they're going with it. Nothing feels like 'filler' for me - even the slower-paced episodes that focus more on character development keep me just as much on the edge of my seat as the relentless, action-packed ones do. Something tells me Robert Kirkman won't let them mess with his baby too much - he's said he's got an ending in mind, but that it will take time to get there. JK Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter in 1990 and said the final chapter of the final book was written that same year. When the first film adaptation was made she hadn't yet written the final books, but her involvement was such to ensure both series ended up in the same place.
I'd already leafed through a couple of issues of The Walking Dead in the comic book shop - yes, I was that person [insert "ashamed" emoji here], I'd seen the incredibly detailed, beautiful artwork and spotted a few frames that had evidently been lifted straight from the page and recreated on the screen, just as they had been in Sin City, but it was the possibility of Negan actually happening that really clinched it for me - what is it about bad guys?
I am still slightly wary of spoilers, but I try to remember how I felt when I was watching The Shawshank Redemption. I completely understood why Darabont had made the changes he had to the book; I hope to understand why The Walking Dead comic book has been changed for its adaptation for television. I will be avoiding Twitter on Sunday nights and throughout Monday as of February though - I don't want to have to go through crap like #RIPBeth again before I've seen the latest episode!
I thought I'd have to start saving up to buy The Walking Dead, but then we rearranged the furniture in the living room:
My birthday is three days after Christmas so people tend to send my birthday cards at the same time they send the Christmas cards and presents. I'd put the cards on a shelf, on top of some DVDs, and had forgotten they were there. We found them when we were moving the shelf. Some contained money from family members who had had no idea what to buy me - I spent it on the first few volumes of the comics. I'm really enjoying them. I'm spotting little things that I suspect were put into the show specifically to keep fans of the comic book happy. Seeing them in the comic book having seen them in the show makes me happy. And I don't miss Daryl.
I'm try not to be too concerned about seeing flaws in the TV version of The Walking Dead the further I get reading the comic book, because of this:
When the comedian Bill Hicks died in 1994, several of his contemporaries and people who knew him took part in a documentary about him entitled 'Just A Ride'. One of those featured was another 'Southern' comedian, Brett Butler. Something she said about Bill has always stuck with me. I'm probably paraphrasing, but she was talking about him being criticised for some of the things he said about the South and she said it didn't mean he didn't love the South. She said, "whenever you love something that much, you see all of its flaws, ten fold." I think that's true - you spend a lot of time focusing on the things you love and when you focus on something its flaws are magnified. It doesn't necessarily change the way you feel about it. I love The Walking Dead. Perhaps that explains why I also love this:
Footnotes:
(1) The Descent (2005) actually made me scream out loud. First time ever that had happened.
(2) http://youtu.be/aVZUVeMtYXc
(3) Sophia is one of the longest-surviving characters in the comic book; she dies part-way through Season Two.
This post was published in its original form on 16/01/2015. I chose to edit it because, well... I thought it was shit. Note to self: write, read, re-write, then publish blog post!
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