Triumph OF. THE Walking Dead

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2 Triumph OF THE Walking Dead

3 Other Smart Pop Television and Comics Titles Batman Unauthorized Boarding the Enterprise Farscape Forever! Finding Serenity Five Seasons of Angel Fringe Science Inside Joss Dollhouse King Kong Is Back! The Man from Krypton The Psychology of Joss Whedon The Psychology of Superheroes Serenity Found Seven Seasons of Buffy So Say We All Star Wars on Trial Stepping Through the Stargate Taking the Red Pill A Taste of True Blood The Unauthorized X-Men A Visitor s Guide to Mystic Falls Webslinger Other Anthologies Edited by James Lowder Astounding Hero Tales The Best of All Flesh The Book of All Flesh The Book of Final Flesh The Book of More Flesh Curse of the Full Moon The Doom of Camelot Family Games: The 100 Best Hobby Games: The 100 Best Legends of the Pendragon Path of the Bold Path of the Just Realms of Infamy Realms of Valor Worlds of Their Own

4 Triumph OF THE Walking Dead Robert Kirkman s Zombie Epic on Page and Screen Edited by James Lowder an imprint of benbella books, inc. dallas, texas

5 THIS PUBLICatiON HAS NOT BEEN PREPARED, APPROVED, OR LICENSED BY ANY ENTITY that CREATED OR PRODUCED THE WELL- KNOWN COMIC SERIES OR TELEVISION SHOW THE WALKING DEAD. Triumph of The Walking Dead 2011 by James Lowder All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Smart Pop is an Imprint of BenBella Books, Inc N. Central Expressway, Suite 400 Dallas, TX Send feedback to Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Triumph of the walking dead : Robert Kirkman s zombie epic on page and screen / edited by James Lowder. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (alk. paper) 1. Kirkman, Robert. Walking dead. 2. Walking dead (Television program) 3. Graphic novels United States. 4. Zombies in literature. I. Lowder, James. PN6727.K586W dc Copyediting by Rebecca Logan and Oriana Leckert Proofreading by Nora Nussbaum Cover design by Kit Sweeney Cover and interior artwork 2011 Rafael Kayanan Text design and composition by Neuwirth & Associates, Inc. Printed by Bang Printing Distributed by Perseus Distribution

6 Permissions Foreword: The Walking Dead, with Entourage 2011 by Joe R. Lansdale The Pathos of The Walking Dead: Bringing Terror Back to Zombie Cinema 2011 by Kyle William Bishop Take Me to Your Leader: Guiding the Masses Through the Apocalypse with a Cracked Moral Compass 2011 by Jonathan Maberry Four-Color Zombies: The Walking Dead in Comics History 2011 by Arnold T. Blumberg A Novelist and a Zombie Walk into a Bar: Translating The Walking Dead to Prose 2011 by Jay Bonansinga Meaninglessness: Cause and Desire in The Birds, Shaun of the Dead, and The Walking Dead 2011 by Craig Fischer Zombie People: The Complicated Nature of Personhood in The Walking Dead 2011 by Brendan Riley No Clean Slate: Unshakable Race and Gender Politics in The Walking Dead 2011 by Kay Steiger Happy (En)Trails: Violence and Viscera on The Walking Dead 2011 by Vince A. Liaguno Rick and Rand: The Objectivist Hero in The Walking Dead 2011 by Ned Vizzini Postmodern Merlin: Edwin Jenner as the Enchanter in the Cave 2011 by Kenneth Hite Feel Better?: The Uncaring Science of The Walking Dead 2011 by Steven Schlozman The Walking Dead and Dance of Death: Or, Why the Zombies Are Always on the Other Side of the Fence 2011 by Lisa Morton A Zombie Among Men: Rick Grimes and the Lessons of Undeadness 2011 by Scott Kenemore The Hero Wears the Hat: Carl as 1.5-Generation Immigrant and True Protagonist 2011 by David Hopkins For Love Is Strong as Death : Redeeming Values in The Walking Dead 2011 by Kim Paffenroth Introduction: In Medias Apocalypsis and other materials 2011 by James Lowder Cover art and interior zombie art 2011 by Rafael Kayanan { v }

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8 { Contents } Foreword The Walking Dead, with Entourage Joe R. Lansdale ix Introduction In Medias Apocalypsis James Lowder xiii The Pathos of The Walking Dead Kyle William Bishop 1 Take Me to Your Leader Jonathan Maberry 15 Four-Color Zombies Arnold T. Blumberg 35 A Novelist and a Zombie Walk into a Bar Jay Bonansinga 53 Meaninglessness Craig Fischer 67

9 { viii } contents Zombie People Brendan Riley 81 No Clean Slate Kay Steiger 99 Happy (En)Trails Vince A. Liaguno 115 Rick and Rand Ned Vizzini 127 Postmodern Merlin Kenneth Hite 143 Feel Better? Steven Schlozman 159 The Walking Dead and Dance of Death Lisa Morton 173 A Zombie Among Men Scott Kenemore 185 The Hero Wears the Hat David Hopkins 201 For Love Is Strong as Death Kim Paffenroth 217 Acknowledgments 231 About the Editor 233

10 { Foreword } The Walking Dead, with Entourage Dead folk won t stay dead. They keep getting up. Least they do in fiction and film. They come out of the grave, or roll off the slab, and head out for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any available snack in between. They do this without need of reservations, manners, or even a table and chair, and one can certainly dismiss the tablecloth. They grab the living and eat them up, and readers and viewers keep paying to eat that experience up right with them. Year after year after year. It s hard to explain why the dead won t die, why they just keep coming back, filling books and stories and comics, shambling across big screens and TV sets, even popping up in poems and car commercials. What s up? The idea isn t really new, though different writers and filmmakers have refined it over the years. In fact, it goes way back. If memory serves me, and it may not, there s a line in Gilgamesh, the oldest written story we know of, about the hungry dead, how they will come back from hell, or its equivalent, to smack teeth on raw flesh. { ix }