'Walking Dead' Has Legs, Second Season Greenlit by AMC

On last night's The Walking Dead, audiences learned that zombie carcasses probably don't smell so fresh. Well the lessons of the undead have only just begun! AMC has picked up The Walking Dead for a double-sized second season (13 episodes as compared to the first season's six). And why wouldn't they? The Walking Dead has become a bonafide hit after only two airings, garnering the largest audience of adults aged 18-49 than any cable program in history.

Congratulations to Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead creator) and Frank Darabont (series director/producer), the men who will continue to bring our nightmares to life!

Review: 'The Walking Dead'

By Don M. Ventura

AMC's new series The Walking Dead starts with a powerful punch to set it apart from anything on television before we flashback to kinder gentler times when zombies aren’t walking around... dead.

We open with deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) commiserating over his marital problems with his best friend, and fellow deputy, Shane (Jon Bernthal). According to his wife Lori he doesn’t care enough, he doesn’t speak enough, and has a propensity for leaving the lights on when he leaves a room. The battle between men and women continues.

Rick is soon shot in the line of duty and awakens some time later alone in the hospital. All alone. Things have changed since Rick was shot and it’s unclear to the poor deputy just how much.

The Walking Dead is the adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s long-running comic book of the same name. In the book Kirkman asks what happens to everyone after a zombie movie ends? How do they survive? What choices do they make? Who do they become?

We begin to get a taste of that here in this fantastic debut by Director and Producer Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile). This series is in the ablest of hands, and Darabont demonstrates his affinity both for horror and (more importantly) drama. For the uninitiated, The Walking Dead has been more about the drama then it is the horror—but make not mistake, it is pretty horrific.

There is no pulling of punches in the story. Viewers are treated to some pretty nightmarish imagery: a little girl with a mangled face, a suffering female zombie dragging her body (everything below the torso missing), and a number of shots to the head. If you’ve seen Darabont’s The Mist, you’d know he doesn’t have a problem with gore.

Lincoln is well cast as Rick Grimes, a sort of Rip Van Winkle who immediately begin a quest to locate his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and their son Carl (Chandler Riggs). Lincoln spends about a third of the episode without anyone to act against and evokes precisely what you would expect: confusion, dread, and eventually sadness as he comes to realize he is not immediately going to be reunited with his family.

In a film you get a feel for how terrible the characters’ predicament is. As the story unfolds as a series, you get the sense of what a nightmare this world is. Lennie Jones and Adrian Kali Turner play a father and son who take in Rick after first mistaking him for a zombie. Jones gets some of the best scenes in the episode as he deals with the ramifications of his deceased wife in the world chronicled in this series.

To say there is nothing on television like The Walking Dead is a hyperbole-free statement. For horror fans and fans of the comic book, this is faithful interpretation of the book. For fans of good drama, well, let’s hope you can see past the blood and guts for what is really at the core of the series.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on AMC.

Image Reprints 'The Walking Dead' Weekly in January 2011

Image is gearing up with a new jumping on point for rabid fans of the new AMC series The Walking Dead, the only-days-away television adaptation of the long-running Robert Kirkman book.

Beginning in January 2011, Image begins reprinting the original series on a weekly basis starting with issue #1. The plan is to continue this schedule for the whole of the year, with a cover price of $2.99. While they've made no promises, I'll wager the book consistenly ships on time.

For readers familiar with the series, but who prefer to read it in trade (like myself), the hardcover Walking Dead Omnibus, Volume 3 is set to hit bookshelves on January 5th 2011. This edition collects issues #49 through #72 and is a whopping 560 pages of drama, self reflection, and flesh eating zombie fun. The cover price is $100 for the third Omnibus—so don’t go spending all those Amazon holiday gift cards on December 26th!

Take a 17-Minute Sneak Peek at The Walking Dead

We are just two weeks away from the October 31st premiere of The Walking Dead! This AMC series is the adaptation of the wonderfully stirring Robert Kirkman comic book of the same name. If you haven’t read the book, consider picking it up if you don’t mind spoiling the series—it looks to be pretty faithful adaptation of the long-running title. Since 2003 Kirkman has been telling the ongoing tale of a growing and shrinking and growing group of survivors, trying to make sense of a world infested by zombies.

Shawshank Redemption Director Frank Dabont brings his ability to tell a character-driven story blended with plenty of chills, which is what this series deserves. Take a look (or look away) at this 17-minute preview choc-full of interviews with Kirkman, Darabont and the cast of The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead

We’re about a month away from the premiere of AMC’s Walking Dead series (and Halloween—I need a costume) and everything about this it looks to ring true to Robert Kirkman’s long-running hit series. Television was the perfect medium to translate Kirkman’s story because it has always asked the question “What happens next?” After the credits roll on your average zombie movie, how does humanity cope? Survive? And most important, how do they change? I have been catching up on The Walking Dead in trades, which prefer over following in its issue-format, and I have been pulled in further with each engrossing arc. Based on the set photos, the trailer that premiered at this summer’s Comic-Con, and the recently released poster, this series is going to get it all right.

Here’s a clip of the goods: