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In 2019, Robert Kirkman ended the series The Walking Dead, after sixteen years of loyal service. Honored during the Angoulême Comic Strip Festival by a Fauve d’Or, with a fascinating retrospective, he would not have quite, quite finished with the living dead however. In any case, not without a note of nostalgia.
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In 2003, Image Comics therefore published the first volume of Kirkman’s zombies, without imagining a quarter of a hundredth of this success subsequently encountered. A serial adaptation, doubled by parallel explorations derived from the original apocalyptic world, and an audiovisual production that will last until 2022 … Long live the living dead!
Yet before they invaded pages, screens and video games, Kirkman’s zombies were drawn by Tony Moore. And for the occasion, like that, hop, straight away, here is a reissue coming from the first boards presented to the publishing house.
We find Rick Grimes, a policeman from a small town in Pennsylvania, not very busy in his job, installed on his sofa with his wife, Carol. Their son Carl is sleeping upstairs, and the TV news talks about people eating people… “ The end of the world as we know it, assures the presenter. »
ForThe Walking Dead, tell Comic BookNick moved to Kentucky, his wife’s name was Lori, and Carol was retained but only appeared to play another character in the third volume of the debut series. But what has certainly changed the most between 2003 and today is the opinion that then emitted Eric Stephenson, marketing director of Image Comics for whom this five-page pitch looked like “at the start of a lame horror movie“. A gentleman with a certain flair, therefore, and all the more amusing as he is now an editor… since the changes he induced were successful.
And even, in the midst of a pandemic, became a precious support for bookstores abused and entangled in a containment from which only Amazon seemed to manage to emerge grown.
« Admit it was terribly cliché now that I come back to it», Assures Kirkman, obviously not very resentful. “After Eric’s comments, I got the idea to wake Rick up from a coma, and bring the book back around that. »
This time, he offers this original version, of 22 pages, “like the best horror movies», Underlines the author with certainly an inner wink. And to indicate that even the cover is in black and white to limit the already minimal printing costs. Except that no, let’s be reassured, the covers will be well colored … Here are the first pages:
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