Villordsutch reviews The Walking Dead #1 10th Anniversary Edition…
“The historic first issue of THE WALKING DEAD presented for the first time in FULL COLOR by colorist extraordinaire DAVE STEWART! Along with the original covers and variants done for this issue throughout the years and tons of other bonus material.”
This special of The Walking Dead (TWD) celebrates its 10th Anniversary. Bringing us the first ever issue with the addition of colour (which looks good but also a little bit odd at the same time) the initial five page proposal and an in-depth interview between Robert Kirkman and Eric Stephenson (Writer and Executive Director at Image Comics). This issue doesn’t affect the on-going story in anyway as this is more of souvenir issue, it’s nice to have but if you’re a casual reader don’t fret about missing something.
The bulk of this issue isn’t really part of the continuity of TWD, for it looks at the history of the comic series. I’ve taken a brief look through the past ten years (within this issue) at the Gods who control the destiny of Rick and son travelling across the Walker infested landscape, dodging Governors and other psychotic power driven team leaders – all of the adventures from the mind of Robert Kirkman and drawn by Charlie Adlard.
It wasn’t the easiest of starts as Mr Kirkman describes within this Anniversary Edition the original proposal being rejected by Eric Stephenson (then Marketing Director at Image) in November 2002 by calling it “a lame horror movie opening” which even Robert now admits that it did when he looks back.
Thinking about the initial proposal being rejected now look where we are with #115 already hitting 350,000+ copies sold; look how far we’ve come and how big it has grown. Even Robert feels the same as he spoke with USA Today and said:
“I started The Walking Dead as a newlywed husband who had no kids, was impoverished and lived in possibly the worst part of town in Lexington, Kentucky. Now I have two kids and I live in Los Angeles with my wife and everything’s going really well. To an extent, [its success is] really not that important to me. Having the No. 1 book of the year gets you nothing — I don’t even get a bowl of Cheerios for that. [However] it’s gratifying in that it means I beat every book released by Marvel and DC, and those are two titanic companies with the backing of Disney and Warner Bros. now. That part is pretty neat.”
It’s odd that in world of HD and 3D that over a quarter of a million people buy, every month, a black and white comic book. I feel this proves that people don’t want tinsel and baubles to make something interesting, they just need a good, well drawn, story and that’s it. That may sound a wee bit glib and it is, though for those two elements to collide in the comic book world takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears and there is nothing glib about that. Kirkman, Adlard and Moore brought something fantastic to our world for the past ten years and I see it happening for a fair few more years to come.
Both The Walking Dead #115 and the Tyreese Special are currently available to buy along with this 10th Anniversary Special.
Villordsutch is married with kids and pets. He looks like a tubby Viking and enjoys science fiction. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published October 10, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
