THE WALKING DEAD #79: This time, it really is ABOUT THE ZOMBIES.

One of my pet peeves about Walking Dead, both the comic and the tv adaptation, has been the claim from so many critics and commentators that it's "not about the zombies."  As I've said before, "if they so badly want something that 'isn't about the zombies,' they can fucking well find it on any other channel."  Nevertheless, I've acknowledged the grain of truth that sometimes seems to justify the claim:

What people mean when they say this series is "really about the survivors" is that the main conflicts take place between the survivors, and often within them. Mind you, the zombies are never irrelevant!--their horrifying, threatening, demoralizing presence obtrusively exerts a constant pressure on everything that happens--but they recede fairly quickly to complicating factors in (living) human conflicts that more immediately dominate the foreground.

By every indication from this issue, even that is about to go out the window.  It looks like I guessed right (not much to my credit, since as I mention it's been heavily foreshadowed) that the next Vol. 8-level annihilating crisis is going to be zombies, zombies, and more zombies, as far as the eye can see.  Here's the teaser for the forthcoming arc:

Jeebus, here I was just one post ago bitching about how the last volume felt "plodding and aimless."  Now, I'm totally stoked to see how this plays out. I guess that's what I get for doubting Kirkman.  I expect it to rock hard.  Here's wishing that the teevee show can reach a point where it can make me feel this genuinely excited with narrative momentum rather than buzz.

And on that note, as a belated update, here are Sean P. Belcher's thoughts on the first season's fifth episode. Where I cautiously allow that maaaaaaybe I could forgive the show for "explaining" the cause of the outbreak, if that frees it to go on to much greater things, it sounds like a dealbreaker for Belcher.  Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.  We'll know soon enough, I guess.

One last thing: as I bought this issue, the comic shop guy who rang me up shared a theory with me--that Rick is still in a coma, and everything's a dream.  I think it says something about earned trust that I regard that as impossible bullshit for the comic, but an unfortunate outside possibility for the show.