The Walking Dead, Volume 1: Days Gone Bye

Taking a well-worn genre—flesh-eating zombies overrun the world and the unlucky surviving humans must deal with the gruesome aftermath—and approaching it from a purely character-driven point of view propels this series into the spotlight from out of nowhere. This collection of the first six issues of the ongoing series opens with police officer Rick Grimes awakening from a gunshot-induced coma. From here, he’s immediately dragged into a world where dangerous revenants are shambling amok without any sort of an explanation. From the moment Grimes comes to, it’s a harrowing battle to avoid hordes of decomposing zombies and a hope-against-all-odds search for his missing family. Grimes makes his way to Atlanta, the nearest large city where there may be other living people, and events take several unexpected turns upon his arrival, as he meets up with a rural encampment of survivors. Of course, as in recent hit movies 28 Days Later… and Dawn of the Dead, the last humans may turn out to be as much a danger as the zombies. Forceful scripting that gives the book a strong grounding in reality, crisp b&w artwork, a shocking final sequence and brisk, gory proceedings elevate this book from the trash heap of pedestrian horror comics.