I'm playing catch-up on this comic and am up to issue 23 at the moment. I gotta say it's been a sweet ride so far. I like the way the zombie apocalypse is used as a way to explore the human, living side of things, rather than as an excuse to show people getting ripped apart in scary gruesome ways (and yet, it's that too! Eeew! grosscool!).
I think the glimpses of impending doom that were shown leading up to Julie and Chris's 'event' have, for me, been the most creepy so far - you see what is coming from a mile off, but you still give yourself the silly hope that it might go otherwise.
Also loving the ease with which Kirkman kills off his main characters.
But i got a couple of issues with it too: There's an increasing macho air to the whole thing which i'm starting to find distateful. I'm not quite sure whether Kirkman valourises or dislikes this element, or secretly valourises it but attempts to downplay it, but it's getting a bit.. icky for me.
Things like the justifications given for the women playing pretty normative secondary/support roles in the story - we see a small discussion soon after Rick arrives at the first camp among the women about 'why do we always do the washing?' ('well men would be crap at it and i sure can't weild a gun! teehee!') and the same theme repeats later on when the group decide to form a committee ('yeah, we asked the women, but the only one who wanted a woman in charge was a bit silly really...'). It seems like Kirkman has noticed he's telling the story from a very normative POV but can't really be bothered changing it, so has tried to justify it instead with some basic lip service.
Rick's increasing violence and aggressive sense of justification is becoming a bit too much like Preacher, but without the amusing slapstick qualities to redeem it. The repeating theme of 'sometimes a man just has to kill. It's a hard, mean thing, goddamn, but shit; it's the right thing.' is starting to get a bit hackneyed. It reads a little like Kirkman just wishes Rick would go about and Fuck Shit Up, but can't think of a way to fit it into the story. However, i get the feeling that he is intending to take this in the 'my God! what have i become!?' direction. I hope that's where he's going with this, though i'm not sure it'd be any less cheap...
And the black sidekick getting shown how to really have a good time by the new black girl who actually fucking says 'what'd you want with that scrawny white bitch anyway?'... Jebus save us...
Has anybody else noticed this kind of thing in the series, or are my PC hormone levels a bit high and making me go maaad with political prescriptive commie crap?
That said. Great series. Just a shame about the ick... |
