Last night’s episode illustrates perhaps the single largest departure from the source material in this inaugural season of The Walking Dead and carries on with one of Robert Kirkman’s specialties: the long forgotten dangling thread.

Let me begin by saying that the craft of this show is second to none.  I’d watch a lot more TV if it were all crafted this carefully and with actual story arcs.  Perhaps that’s why I loved LOST so much, is that you couldn’t simply watch it in any order like a sitcom, it brought you from point A to point B in a very specific fashion.  The Walking Dead is exactly the same way and once they’ve moved forward, the characters can’t move back.  Each of their actions have consequences, every decision is difficult, and all of the characters are expendable.

I loved the drama in this episode more than most of the others.  Andrea dealing with her sister’s death and Carol dealing with that of her husband were probably two of the most honest and contrasting character moments I’ve ever seen on television.

Jim was another character that we had to watch make terrible decisions about their fate where there were no good options.  But the most interesting thing about this early stage in the long term survival in the group is to see who has come to terms with the new morality they’re dealing with and who is still living in the old world.  Jim has been bitten and there are two different reactions: Rick wants to get him healed, Daryl wants to kill him outright.

Rick being seen as a leader wins this argument and sends the group on a journey to the CDC, where there could be a cure.  If there’s a cure anywhere, it would be at the Centers for Disease Control, right?

Shane isn’t on board with this decision and it leads to perhaps my favorite moment in the show thus far.  If you haven’t seen the episode, you’ll know the one I mean.

If you have seen it:

It’s the moment where Shane is pointing his gun through the woods at Rick, ready to kill him and he looks over to see that Dale is watching him, horrified.  The look on Dale’s face is perfect.

The entire cast works perfectly.

The major departure this episode made from the source material was with their arrival at the CDC and the doors to the spaceship, as it were, opening up.

I’ve talked to some people who haven’t liked this departure much, but I think there’s a method to the madness.  Those of us that have been reading the comic understand that there is no end in sight.  Rick and the group aren’t going to magically find a cure or someone to help.  Their fight for survival is forever.  And to see them come to the one place in the United States that might have a cure and see it staffed by one guy whose most promising lead was burned up by a computer is going to signal to these people that the world is never going to be the same.

It’s a very, very smart move.

Which leads me to my predictions, past and present.

Last week I speculated that the season might end with the confrontation between Carl and Shane.  I’m not so sure anymore.  Shane is a threat, and he’ll need to be dealt with, but we’re still forgetting the long forgotten dangling thread from the beginning of the season: Merle.

Merle was left for dead by Rick and had to cut his own hand off to survive.  He made it away and his fate has been completely uncertain beyond his theft of the truck used by the crew sent to rescue him.  Rick left a note for Morgan about where they were heading, and what better way to let Merle know where they’re headed for him to exact his vengeance?

Having said all of that, the thing I love about Robert Kirkman’s writing is that he usually doesn’t give you what you expect, and when you do finally get something you expect, it’s so sick and twisted that it ties you up in knots.  These are what I like to call “Kirkman” moments.  Since I’ve been reading his books for years, I’m well accustomed to them, but some of you may not know.  A Kirkman moment is when you reach the end of an issue (or an episode in this case) and it leaves you with such a drastic feeling of “What the hell?” that you shake your fist to the sky and shout “Damn you, Kirkman!”

It happens a lot.

And I think it’ll be twice as bad because usually there’s not more than a couple of months between issues.  As of this point, we have 11 months after next weeks episode to wait for another episode.

Hopefully, AMC will have mercy on us and give us an entire season next year in the middle of the year, and another season at the beginning of 2012.

I felt lucky to get in on the first issue of Skullkickers, the new series from Image, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The second was… not as good. I figured I need to come back for #3 (out today) just to see where it stands. Is it getting back the quality of the first book? Or was the first a fluke and it’s not going to be very good at all? The answer seems to be somewhere in between. Which, of course, means I’ll probably be back for issue #4. At the moment I’m thinking I’ll take on issue #5 as well. After five issues I should know whether this should be in the hold or not.

Once again, Edwin Huang and Misty Coats have teamed up well on the art and colors. But Jim Zubkavich just isn’t drawing me into the story. Issue #1 did a great job introducing characters and throwing me straight into the plot. Issue #2 moved from violent episode to violent episode with very little story. Both of them ended on a reasonable cliffhanger.

Now issue #3 resolved the last cliffhanger quickly and skipped the action, letting it happen off panel instead. I won’t complain that the fight scene was summarized in a word bubble instead of shown, simply because the back to back two page spreads of Shorty having a hallucinogenic vision that may or may not be prophecy looked so damn pretty.

Once again, the script just falls flat in the story department. The banter between the two mercenaries seems stilted. It’s not as bad as George Lucas dialogue but that doesn’t say much. The new cliffhanger was also predictable and sets up a predictable escape as well. I am still enjoying the oddly expositional sound effects. In a way, it almost seems like the writer’s notes describing the panel to the artist are still being incorporated. It’s unique, but not enough to save an otherwise lackluster product.

At this point I think it’s irresponsible to recommend (or not) this book to anyone. It just hasn’t been consistent enough. If you’ve already read the first two issues you might as well grab the third. If you haven’t read it, I’d suggest waiting for a few more issues being reviewed before you throw down your dollars. I’m starting to think this series might be better suited to reading in trades rather than individually.

Series creator Robert Kirkman made his debut this evening as a writer of teleplays with tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead and I must say I was quite pleased with the result.

After having left Merle, a racist redneck, handcuffed to a pipe on the top of a building and left to die, Rick, Glenn and T-Dogg (really?) feel compelled to go back to rescue Merle with his hot-headed, but ultimately badass, younger brother, Daryl.  The ending of episode 3 brought the group to the rooftop where it turns out Merle has amputated his own hand in order to survive.

This episode has the group following his blood trail, but they’re jumped by a group of Latin gang members.

There are those I was watching the episode with that checked out right at that moment.  The episode jumped the shark for a lot of people at that point (if reactions via Twitter are to be believed), but I was into the story, hook, line, and sinker.

The gang members kidnap Glenn (who is probably my favorite on the show, making his likely death all the more bittersweet) and a standoff ensues.

The thing I love about this show is that it ties me up in knots while I’m watching it.  It’s stressful.  I get way too involved in who is going to live and who is going to die.  I truly feel like I have a stake in the survival of the characters.  When things turn out better than expected, I’m relieved.  When things go to hell, I really feel like I’m ready to vomit.

When all hell broke loose on this episode, all I could say over and over again was, “Aw, shit.”

Now that we’re on the back end of season one, heading toward the finale, I feel like we’re getting to know the characters better and better, and they’re giving us plenty of reasons to enjoy the show.  The highlights are obviously Glenn and Dale, two of my favorite characters from the comics.  The parts have been cast perfectly and they are being played to perfection by Steven Yuen and Jeffery DeMunn.  And they get fleshed out just a little bit at a time as each episode goes by.

Kirkman and Darabont have been providing plenty of departures from the source material so far, not enough to be off-putting and just enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seat.  Merle is one of those things, to be sure.

Sure, there was a big climax here, a zombie attack and things are changing for the group, but Merle is on the loose still.  Rick and his group don’t just have the walkers to worry about, Merle is out there and full of piss and vinegar, ready to kill.

And that cliffhanger is probably one of the best this show has offered us so far, that nauseating sense of uncertainty.

In summation, though some might think it faltered, I think this was a great episode and is going to leave us a lot of interesting opportunities for the last two episodes of the season.

Now that we’re done, I want to take a moment and make some predictions about this season, and this is spoiler territory for those who have not yet read the comic book, so stay away if you haven’t:

My guess is that this season is going to end with Carl killing Shane.

It makes a lot of sense.  It happens early on in the comics. People seem to hate the idea of the love-triangle that’s being played into and there’s much more interesting stuff to come on that front with this relationship.  And Shane is becoming more and more a loose cannon and a dick-headed lawman with each episode.

And wouldn’t that be a perfect book end and a lost shot of the season?

Episode One opened with Rick killing a little girl zombie.  Wouldn’t it make perfect sense to reverse the imagery and have a little boy killing a healthy adult for the bookend?

Who knows.  It’s a theory.  We’ll see.

What do you guys think?

It’s time again for Tag Team Thursday, where Clobber-Tron and Shaz-Bot take one of this week’s comics and share their opinions! This week they have an unfortunate encounter with:

Halcyon #1 from Image Comics

The PREVIEWS solicitation read

The story of what happens when the superheroes win. No crime, no war.

We disagree with the word STORY in that sentence.

C-T: I cant read Urdu, Arabic, Farsi, or any of the other languages spoken in the middle east so whenever I see these letters in a comic book it’s a bit of a turn off.

S-B: You do realize that the foreign text is just a font made to look like Arabic? It’s actually in English, it’s a clever way to do a foreign language without putting it in brackets and adding a footnote saying what language is being spoken, but also it’s really hard to read in spots, and kind of comes off as being a bit too clever.

C-T: Yeah I totally got that, I was wondering if it would blow past you or anybody else reading the book, I’ve been reading Zatana speak long enough to know what those crazy letterers are up too!

S-B: . In my mind, first issues are supposed to hook me in a way that makes me want to read more, Image usually is good about that with books like Chew, Guarding the Globe and the like, but in this book, it’s just introducing characters and a vague semblance of setting.

C-T: After the ultra violent JARHEAD scene we skip to an alternate reality where the combination of strange characters and background remind me of the 80’s G.I. Joe cartoons.

S-B: I kind of got a bit of a G.I. Joe vibe too, but only from Jarhead and the design of the main villain

C-T: I enjoy the art by Ryan Bodenheim and I’m really impressed. I don’t want to over compliment the guy but his pencils remind me of a cross between Frank Quitely and Chris Burnham!

S-B: I did like the art. I got a big Frank Quietly vibe from it, but with it’s own flair.

C-T: Ok on to the ‘story’, when Three weeks ago, today and ‘that moment’ are the time frame given new readers to align a story in their head with characters they’ve never seen before explosions and snippets of conversation between superheroes? And cops? And villains? I cant tell what’s what and I want to punch this book. There is no way issue #2 can reverse the damage done by this terrible narrative. If this becomes a classic story reprinted in a deluxe format I’ll eat my hat.

S-B Wow. You really didn’t like this book. I can’t really argue with your points though. My main problem is they introduce all these characters, but they don’t give us anything to connect with them on any level. If I don’t care about the situations, there is nothing there to keep me reading. It’s Tom Brevoort’s #2 rule of writing, You can have the cleverest setup ever (this is more convoluted then clever), but if you can’t make the reader care about the characters, you’re doing it wrong.

C-T I hated this book so much I promised to eat my well loved haberdashery if it becomes a raging success! Who the hell wrote this book Grant Morrison’s dog? Is this Marc Guggenheim fellow new to the game?

S-B: Guggenheim was one of the Spidey Brain Trust writers in addition to writing a lot for TV. I personally don’t think he’s too suited for comics work, but your mileage may vary. Although we both agree avoid this book like the plague.

Aside form the wonderful Ryan Bodenheim art that wraps up the first all negative Tag Team Thursday. See you next week.

I just had a chance to read this book now in trade format from Image comics written and drawn by Chris Giarrusso. You may also be familiar with Chris from his current run doing Mini-Marvels. G-Man tells the story of a young boy who decides he wants to be a super hero, so he becomes one and we find he lives in the image universe where basically everyone is a super hero. This book is incredibly funny, I found myself literally laughing out loud numerous times. It pokes fun at the state of comics without taking itself too serious. The other nice thing is not only is it funny but it looks to be great for kids too, I know there are a lot of comic book parents out there and this seems like a good book to get your kids into as well. Being from the image universe it also has guest cameos and references to such heroes as Invincible, The Savage Dragon and Skull Theodore Troll. If that’s not enough for you to check it out, I’m including a couple of key lines which were incredibly funny such as “Bah, it’s just another sign of the apocalypse. It’ll clear up.” and “But my duplicate here is from a parallel world. Is he an evil duplicate? No. Then don’t worry about it.”

This is a very funny superhero book and it goes into all of the problems you might face when first becoming a superhero as a kid. I highly recommend picking up this book. It is currently in stores, and if you want more G-Man be sure to check out Chris G’s Website.

Marvel and DC split the top ten last month with five books each. Rick Remender and Jerome Opena won the big prize with Uncanny X-Force #1, while the other 4 books belonged to DC in the top 5. I like to see these lists and Diamond is good about providing them and reminding consumers that the numbers reflect how many books were sold to shops not costumers.

Variant covers have unfortunately made a huge comeback since the 90’s and they are definitely a factor in how many copies of a book a shop orders. I don’t know how many covers were available for Uncanny X Force #1 but I’ve seen at least three. If publishers can give shop owners more money by offering an issue to sell for twice the cover price or more it makes me wonder how easy it would be to buy your company in the top spot.

I actually purchased 8 of the top 10 books last month and I agree that they all deserve their spot but I have the feeling there’s more than a few copies laying around in shops across North America. At the bottom of the list The Walking Dead #78 came in at #71. It will be interesting to see how well the new weekly Walking Dead reprints.

See the entire list HERE.

Last night saw the premiere of Frank Darabont’s AMC adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s Image comic book series The Walking Dead. (Needlessly verbose, I know, but accurate.)

Along with the Geek Show Podcast, we presented the first episode on the big screen at Brewvies Cinema Pub in Salt Lake City to two sold out audiences for the premiere and encore screening of the show.

I’m not familiar with any of AMC’s other dramatic offerings, though I have invested in the first season of Mad Men on Blu-ray, but haven’t even cracked it out of the plastic, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the station. Would we be seeing lots of gore and violence and swearing like we’re used to in the comic book?

I knew the creative team behind the show was second to none. Frank Darabont is a champion of the filmmaking form and Kirkman is a world-class storyteller. (And David Tattersall is an incredible Director of Photography, he also lensed all of the Star Wars prequels and quite a bit of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.) But would basic cable allow the show to breathe in all the ways it needed to?

The short answer is yes. The first 90 minute installment of this show held nothing back. It opens with a bitterly sad and shocking scene that shows us exactly how brutal the world we’re being brought into is. Rick Grimes (played beautifully by Andrew Lincoln), dressed as a Sheriff’s deputy comes across a little girl in a desolate wasteland of abandoned cars. He sees her pick up her stuffed animal and calls out to her. Slowly, she turns toward him and he can see she’s been infected with whatever is turning people into zombies. She makes a run toward him, but he shoots her in the face.

And that sets the pace for the next 90 minutes of television goodness.

We’re brought back in time after the credits to the incident which sees Rick sent to the hospital. We get a sense of his relationship with his partner, Shane, and see what kind of man he is in a normal world before he’s shot, taken by a coma, and awakens in the world we’ll be spending the rest of this series exploring.

Darabont is an excellent director of horror and makes even the simple task of getting out of the hospital a nail-biting experience.

There were a number of departures from the comics, but I think each of them were required for the adaptation to television. One of the characters from the first trade, Morgan, has a much richer story that is extended in very good ways and actually steals the best moment in the first episode for himself, catching his own wife in the cross hairs of a rifle.

The audience was completely into the show, even booing and hissing the revelation that Rick’s wife, Lori, believes her husband dead and is seeing his douche-bag of a partner, Shane. They were also actively jumpy and startled at all the right times throughout.

Things were layered together perfectly, matching the comic in all the right ways, and diverging in the most respectful ways to the source material as possible to make it perfect for television and accessible to an audience who hasn’t read the book.

If I had to give this episode a rating out of 1 to 10, it would easily be a 10. This is must-see TV and will very nicely fill the void in my heart left by the ending of LOST.

And it looks like it will be around for a while, too. In addition to the rest of this season (5 more episodes), AMC has greenlit a second full season. And since this episode had the single best viewership in AMC’s history with an estimated 5.3 million viewers (The Hollywood Reporter has the full story on the numbers), I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of this show in the future. Perhaps they can keep it up indefinitely, just like the comic.

We’ll have pictures from the event online in the next day or two. And Brewvies has asked if we’d like to come back for every episode of the series. And I think the answer is a resounding yes. Be sure to check our facebook page for details.

AMC has released a tease of the first five minutes of the highly anticipated show “The Walking Dead”. For those of you stationed under a rock somewhere, this show is based on Robert Kirkman’s book of the same name, which is a continuing series of survival horror.

Frank Darabont directed this first episode and it premieres on Halloween Night on AMC. (Be sure to check your local listings for the exact time and channel.)

For those of you in the Salt Lake City area, we’re co-hosting along with the Geek Show Podcast a presentation of this on the big screen at Brewvies. You can get more details on the facebook event page. It’s a free event and open to the public.

Without further ado, here are the first five minutes of The Walking Dead TV Show:

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I was strolling through the local Walmart laughing at people and discussing the gentrification of the middle class with my wife when a familiar logo caught the corner of my eye. I shrugged it off as short term effects of the hallucinogenic
drugs I’d taken earlier and continued through the store. Before leaving I decided to peruse the magazine and book section for a new thesaurus. Much to my chagrin, in the BEST SELLERS rack were some independent comics books! Does this change the game or is this a fad? Is this any different than the Watchmen graphic novels in my local grocery store? Is Image bigger than DC comics now? Did I go overboard with my new thesaurus?

Thanks to Image Comics for the review copy.

Sam and Twitch brings out a part of the Spawn universe that I feel was ignored far too often. Seeing as I’m one of the few Spawn readers that doesn’t wear clown face paint and drink Faygo I’ve been pushed toward Sam and Twitch by the other bots, (probably hoping to rid me of my Spawn problem.)

The writer brings forward some of my favorite parts of any serial-killer drama. They spend time investigating what makes the killer tick, and spend a great amount of time discussing the use of graphological analysis in solving murder cases that involve writing. I have no way of knowing how accurate the information provided was, but it added a very interesting twist into the story as they follow the killer from victim to victim. And true to Images darker vibe, the gritty feel of the world Sam and Twitch live in complete with: drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless, and church members wanting to “save the helpless”. Helps keep you feverishly turning pages wanting to know where each character is headed.

Keeping true to his attitude in the Spawn world Sam is cranky, hateful, and hell bent on solving the case put in front of him, while Twitch is cool, collected, and 100% precision. I really enjoyed the way the dynamic between the two characters is leveraged to make you like the characters that much more.

Overall the story is a solid crime drama, with a predictable ending, that leaves you satisfied. Sometimes a happy ending fits a story, and in the case of the writer, it fits exceptionally well. I recommend finding a local comic shop and picking this title up, it’s an interesting and easy read, with no commitment to buy an issue monthly.

Score: 4/5