Walking, Sleeping, Biting Dead

HAPPY HALLOWEEN to all of you ghosties, ghouglies, witches, mummies and zombies out there.  Hope everyone survived the storm ok, and if you are in one of the hard hit areas, my thoughts and prayers are with you.  I have to say all of this disaster just reminds me that one must be prepared for the ultimate disaster THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE (hence forth known as ZA).
In preparation for this event I have been watching every zombie movie I can get my hands on, reading my Zombie Survival Guide and keeping my Zombie Kit stocked. I have also been watching The Walking Dead tv show (which may or may not have gotten me on this whole zombie kick to start with). Of course this series is based on a book, which of course means I now have to read it.  This story is a bit different from my norm as it is in graphic novel form.  I have to admit I love graphic novels, ever since my friend used to sneak in whole backpacks full of them into our World Cultures class in high school, and we used to spend the whole class time reading them under our desks I have been in love with this form of story telling.  I like how in a graphic novel you can sum up a story with way less words then in a conventional book.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE words, but sometimes, especially if action is a big part of the story, words can gum up the pacing a bit.  In a graphic novel you don't have to describe the eerily serene, yet empty gated community using a whole paragraph, you can just show it in a panel.  You rarely have to reiterate things 'cause they are constantly shown, and lets face it SEEING a zombie get it's head bashed in is so much more satisfying then reading about it.

This brings me to The Walking Dead graphic novels I have been reading, I am just finishing Compendium One which is the first 48 issues of this series.  I usually like to wait until most of the series has been written, because I am very impatient and rip through the little issues way to fast.  I also like having a lot of issues collected in one book for connivance purposes.  I am loving the pacing of this series, after watching the hit and miss pacing of the show (season 1 AWESOME, season 2 SUCKS ((until the end then it got AWESOME)), season 3 OH MY GOSH IT IS SO COOL I CAN"T WAIT UNTIL NEXT WEEK SERIOUSLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME!) the graphic novel definitely has a more quick, even frantic pace.  I love that the TV show does not feel the need to follow the graphic novel to closely so no matter which one you read/watch first your not going to spoil it for yourself. I give a little
more leniency in tv shows that are adapted from books then I do to movies, because I feel tv shows are more "inspired" by source material than they are trying to translate the book into a single movie which I expect to at least attempt to follow the original story line.  The graphic novel is in black and white, which lends a more...not sure how to put it...surreal, fuzzy line, psycho feel to it.  Anyways I'm starting to ramble (possibly because I stayed up to late reading zombie novels) and I will end this here, if you like blood, guts, gore, and zombies then go read this graphic novel. Be warned it is for the 16 and over crowd only, it is all about every adult situation you can possibly imagine so keep that in mind.  Also pay attention to the good and bad survival skills that are presented, it may save your life one day when the ZA comes upon us!

What is your strategy for surviving the ZA?  What do you think about TV shows straying from the source material?  Who is your favorite character on the show/book?  Does it change from show to book?  Do you also want to see Lori fed to the zombies?