The Walking Dead, Vol. 8: Made to Suffer

Most of the folks here already know that The Walking Dead saga is a compilation of stories by Robert Kirkman that expand on the story that is well know to any zombie movie fan....The main story. The one started in earnest by George Romero in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead [and was later remade in 1990 (the version that I prefer) by Tom Savini (with Romero oversight)].The Walking Dead Volume 8 continues the story of former Normal-World Police Officer Rick Grimes and those that he comes in contact with in a New World...a world that has been over-run by zombies.I'd agree with you if you thought that maybe The Walking Dead, Vol. 7: The Calm Before took a major pause in the epic series to focus less on zombies and more on what happens to society, its morals, laws and standards when government is lost and the planet becomes mostly uninhabitable.You'll probably recall that previous volumes in the series showed how venturing out of the confines and security provided by the characters' home (established in Volume 3) are less than safe. The new zombie-infested world is dangerous not only because of the hordes of undead, but outside the gates await unfathomable chaos and horror in the pockets of societies of other survivors (see Volumes 5 and 6)....Especially in Volume 6 where survivors in desperate situations do the unthinkable to stay alive (or entertained).By the end of Volume 6 we thought that one of the major threats to the primary group of survivors that the series follows had been removed. But what fan of the series can forget the cliffhanger of a last page from Volume 7? Volume 7 was appropriately named "The Calm Before", because Volume 8 is indeed a storm. Volume 8 picks up right from the shocker of a final Volume 7 page and relentlessly presents a war...not between the undead and man...but between two societies of the living in a world gone mad.There's real, heartfelt emotion in The Walking Dead series combined with believable scenarios. I was never a big comic book guy prior to this series. Now I'm singing a different tune. This comic book series blows the doors off of a lot DVDs that I've wasted time with, and it's introduced me to a whole new entertainment media.Anyway, the volume releases of The Walking Dead are like reading a screenplay with storyboards of a version of Night of the Living Dead that began simultaneously, but in a different part of the country (much like George Romero's late 2007 release, Diary of the Dead). Yes, The Walking Dead is kind of a rip-off of a story (stories) already told, but the key is that it's done very very well. The zombies are true to the original Romero creation: slow and stupid as opposed to the fast and thinking "infected" in (28 Weeks Later / 28 Days Later) or the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.Each Walking Dead volume only takes about an hour to get all the way through, and they leave you wanting more. And they seem to keep coming; I think that issues 49 - 55 will likely comprise Volume 9 (with issue 55 due in Sept '08), so unfortunately, as of this writing, only #49 - #53 are published. The wait begins.Volumes 1 - 8 are all available individually. A hard cover combination of Volumes 1 & 2 is out (The Walking Dead Book 1, a hard cover combination of Volumes 3 & 4 is out (The Walking Dead, Book 2), and Volumes 5 & 6 are now combined in Hardcover (The Walking Dead Book 3).Anyone in need of a very well done zombie fix that you don't put into your DVD player should absolutely get down with The Walking Dead sickness. Add it to your cart, but be sure to start with Volume 1 and read them chronologically.

I've purchased all volumes up to 22 and the TV show has just about caught up to wear I am in the novels. These books are friggen awesome. I don't read much and my buddy lent me VOL 1 after he knew I liked the show. Well, I burned through the first one and then just went on a tear buying 4 volumes at a time...the price is pretty good for what you get out of these. $9-$15 is the range I've paid per novel, I'm not sure why they aren't the same but anyways, I keep buying them none the less. The story was written before the TV Show and the show follows the story but there is some differences. The written story is more violent and graphic then the tv show but the tv show does a decent job of sticking with main ideas. I've noticed that certain plot things that happen in the book also happen in the show but there is a unique twist like a different character it happens to or something like that. Which makes reading these volumes great cuz I have some idea of where the story is going (after having watched all tv episodes) but there are still surprises. If you like the TV show and haven't read these, give it a try and you will get a whole new experience of the Walking Dead story. I'm putting this same review under every volume I've purchased (1-22) so people can see it. go buy these!

For zombie story splatter-fans who may have felt that this book was getting a little plot-heavy and lacking in the gore department, this volume provides all the blood, guts and exploding heads you could ever want. It's not the slow-moving zombies who are doing all the killing, though: this time it's all about human-on-human violence, as a militaristic rival band of survivors -- led by their pure-evil, super-sadistic Governor -- descend on our hero Rick and his band of refugees. All the character development that author Robert Kirkman has invested in the series pays off in horrific emotional dividends, as one hero after another falls prey to the madness of war. Indeed, you'll be busier trying to figure out who *didn't* get killed than the other way around.This is a harsh storyline, cruel, unrelenting, unapologetically tragic -- and genuinely gross. Indeed, there are at least three grueling sequences that literally made me nauseous while reading them. If you want some real, hardcore horror, Kirkman really delivers on this one. And, boy, I can't wait to see what happens next! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

OMG, I can't believe how far this series has gone. Just can't get enough. If you haven't read a single issue then you are in for a treat because you don't have to wait 6 months for each book to come out. you can buy all 8 Trades and save yourself 4 years of waiting!Most of the reviews have pretty much summed up how great this addition is to the rest of the series, but I would like to add that Showtime or HBO need to option this for a new series, already. Every two trades could be a full season. You'd already have 4 Seasons of materials to work withI started reading the Walking Dead comic when it was already up to issue #20, so I started buying the Trades to read the stories easier. Man, Since then I've loaned this book around my office and I have about 8 people waiting for the book to get passed around. So now I buy 2, because I always have another person to introduce the series to.