TPB Reviews: The Walking Dead vol. 6

by: Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Cliff Rathburn

Collects: The Walking Dead #31-36

Premise: An apocalyptic zombie epidemic has swept the area, or the nation, maybe even the globe. Nobody knows how far and wide this epidemic reaches, why it started, or how to even stop it. This series follows a small band of survivors as they deal with the changing world around them. As the tag-line reads: "In a world of the dead, we are forced to finally start living."

Review:
This review contains very minor spoilers for many previous volumes, you have been warned!

I saw volume 6 as part of a much larger arc spanning volumes 5-8. It may be backwards to suggest that volumes 5-8 are one big long arc, because essentially, this book is an ever flowing continuation, is one big long arc in it of itself. But what separates volumes 5-8 is the introduction of a new (in a way, competing) band of survivors with their own town, own rules, own laws, and their own type of barbarism.

Kirkman's dialogue has gotten better and better, as the survivor crew is less speechy and more conversational but the plot elements have dropped a bit, as the survivor crew have less time to deal with the inner antagonism and have made the antagonist an outside group, an external threat. It's unfortunate that Kirkman shifts much of the barbarism in the series to one man from the new town. This new town has its own inner conflicts the arises from depravity of this charismatic dominant leader. But still much of the depravity and the main antagonist for a few books is one man from one town.

In a way it's kind of an acronym of how we see other foreign countries, especially the Orientalist view Middle Eastern cultures. The barbarism of the other groups is escalated, and the barbarism of their own group is depleted a bit, but in reality it's not completely true. In volume 4, the inner conflict of our main characters reached a breaking point, and characters said some truly hurtful things to each other. But the presence of an outside foreign threat, has made this group come together more because all the other people in the other town are barbarous. Yet that's obviously not true.

Charima can get people power, power can get people to do other things for you, and getting other people to do things for you can lead to movements, wars, genocides, and overall a messed up world.

Another great aspect of this series, and in this book in particular, is how it deals with the many ways of survivor's guilt. Michonne's character, has been put through tremendously horrific experiences, she reverts back to a baser version of herself, one that's just as barbarous as the character from the new town. It helps her cope with the horrible things that have gone on and that version allows her to survive where her other version may have given in already.

This is just one aspect of coping that we see, everybody seems to cope in such different ways. Rick becomes detached from his more center and desensitized to violence and committing violence. Glenn and Maggie focuses one of the few happy things in life that's left, Love, their social support of each other, the kids are similar creating a social support system amongst themselves.

Of course normality will never ever be reachieved, but as the book continues as the crew gets closer and closer to some environmental semblance of normality, the personalities of the people inside the crew get farther and farther away.


Final Thoughts: As the series continues, this book moves continues the prototypical zombie themes and goes into some deeper themes. The plot elements take a step back as they introduce a very black/white villain but Kirkman writes the villain so well, that you just can't help hating him. Obviously I'm mixed in my opinions of this book and this series. I like a lot of it, but I also don't like some of it. No doubt it's one of the most solid books going though.

Final Grade: 8.0/10