"The Walking Dead - Book 11 (2015)

Sex :
Violence :
Editors Sean Mackiewicz
Publisher Image Comics
Writers Robert Kirkman
Art and Colours Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn, Rus Wooton
Cover Charlie Adlard
Genre Zombie
Tagline a continuing story of survival horror
Country

Review

"It was the dead. They were speaking."- Marco

With Negan rallying his forces Rick decides it's time to abandon Alexandria and concentrate forces at the Hilltop to prepare to repel the eventual assault by the Saviours. Of course Negan is also scheming and has devised a germ warfare strategy that he thinks will be enough to destroy all opposition. The clock is ticking and Negan lays siege to Hilltop a hell of a lot earlier than Rick anticipates. However it isn't going to go as simply as Negan thinks there's a fifth column at work and Rick has some tricky manoeuvres up his sleeve. All out conflict is looming folks as two tribes go to war, Rick does however have one final ace to play, and we get a completely unexpected resolution to the conflict.

With the Saviour war finally over the four communities are at peace with each other and trade is starting to replace conflict as things settled down. Besides the odd undead incursion things are looking pretty safe for the last vestiges of humanity. They even get some new blood via Magna and her crew who have been nomading it through the apocalypse. Naturally nothing is going to be easy and Hilltop riders run across a pack of undead, undead who whisper and carry weapons. Are the restlessly dead starting to evolve or is this something else, Dante uncovers one hell of a monstrous threat on civilisation's borders. Ready to check into the new volume, oh hell yes!

Heck you got to say this series is going to keep on trucking till Kirkman runs out of ideas or the public decides enough is enough, end this thing. Currently can't see this happening with the graphic novel going well and the television series still rating its pants off like a Sailor one hour into shore leave. So book eleven duly arrived in our grasping mitts and I was on it like a Voorhees member arriving at summer camp. Have to admit however that the war thing with Negan kind of petered out rather than having the full guts and glory I was expecting, although Rick did show he can be one vicious bastard if the chips are down. But icing on this particular cake for mine was the introduction of the Whisperers, which bodes well for the next few story arcs. Alexandria and her allies might have finally run into something a bit more than they can handle, or will believe in the short term. Without giving too much away, this lot are looney tunes and make the Sawyers look like your wholesome next door church faring neighbours. Excellent stuff and I'm certainly as excited as a kid at Christmas to discover what might transpire for Rick's crew with new dangers on the horizon.

Getting the technical out of the way first, we get two story arcs to keep our taste for mass destruction on high alert. All Out War Part Two continues the Negan threat with a final confrontation that promised high octane death and destruction, but which fell somewhat short given the promise of the previous chapter. And a new story arc introducing the Whisperers entitled A New Beginning. Both "chapters",The Walking Dead is after all one massive graphic novel, are presented in black and white pencil drawing on standard U.S A4, with everything presented in a hard bound book form. It should be noted that there are some coloured pages in the appendices which cover concepts, comic covers, and some interesting detours into the expanding Walking Dead universe.

The Walking Dead Book 11

While everyone no doubt is dialling in for Negan mayhem, and hey he was a worthy villain to our square jawed former lawman, I was actually going chick over the interpersonal developments that keep this one above the death and gore normally associated with the zombie subgenre. To recap kids, the zombie thing is less about the undead and more about the living; we are them etc. to paraphrase Tom Savini. Carl is all grown up, remember he has always been something of a bad arse, and wants to move to Hilltop to apprentice as a blacksmith, Rick is naturally not fully supporting this development but hey life moves on even in the apocalyptic wastelands. Eugene is having problems with his relationship with Rosetta, he doesn't have the interpersonal firepower to understand the being human thing. And Maggie is struggling with the leadership thing, not something she wanted but she has the job. This one is brimming with SOAP opera themes and people getting on with their lives, which just adds some caviar to the main meat, anyone remember the walking dead? Oh wait Eugene does herd a ton of them and there's that whole Whisperer thing.

Naturally Rick makes some calls that don't meet with universal approval, Negan sure is vexing, and which will no doubt come back to bite him in the arse when things unravel. Without giving out spoilers Mr Grimes makes a call that harkens back to his purpose of recreating the civilised in civilisation without really coming to grips with the whole apocalyptic thing. Maggie disagrees, which is pretty obvious given past history, and of course Carl doesn't want to muck around, as usual he is prepared to go that one step beyond what the adults will do in order to get things done. Read the book to get the gist of what is going down and then decide if you agree with Rick or not, for the record I'm saying he got it wrong again and this will cause a bunch of people to die.

Speaking of people departing this mortal coil, for once the lead characters are safer than kids after the demise of Gary Glitter. Which is strange because about every book sees some core character meeting their fate, generally in the most unpleasant fashion possible, hey you don't dial into The Walking Dead for the fluffy bunny moments. Guess we have either cut down to a core of characters that are pretty much immune from Kirkman's culling moods, or it's the lull before a storm of bodies pile up like kindling. Given a new possible enemy is at the gate, I'm inclined to believe the later, as usual the word of advice would be don't get too attached to anyone, no one is eafe exept Rick and possible Carl.

Once again the art pack lead by Charlie Adlard were keeping it simple, almost naïve, as they breathed life into a script by Kirkman that simply keeps on kicking you in the nuts, metaphorically for the ladies of course. Things are simply, at the most some tones, but we get the full story and emotions captured to make book eleven hum. While the majority, hey Wolf didn't say vast, of panels are standard size we get enough thrown onto the pages in single page and double page drawings to really nail things and keep it interesting. Guess the boys are in full swing by now and know what works for them and I guess what doesn't. Do we get surprises still, yeah I would say so, and especially dug the comic covers at the back of the book and the surprise inclusions. If you like graphic novels, and we certainly do, then dial in, this one lays down the blueprint of how to get it happening. Slight sidenote, we are going to be delving into Outcast, Kirkman's new foray into the dark worlds, will be interesting to see if the art side diverges from his most famous creation or not.

By this stage we are starting to separate the wheat from the chaff, those sturdy horror dudes and chicks keeping with the story, and the light weights who have clambered onto the next popular thang due to short attention spans and the inability to get the zombie subgenre is all about drama and how people cope with the apocalypse. Kirkman and team are paying back their regular crew with one hell of a good story, even after all these years, and I for one am sticking right there with the big fella. Besides which the Whisperers, seriously these folk make the Sawyer clan look like Seven Day Adventists! The script continues to be intriguing and new, life is moving forward in the wastelands, and there are new dangers on the horizon. Full recommendation kids, this is one horror graphic novel that certainly hasn't outstand its welcome. Can't wait for the next book; reckon we are in for a high old time with the walking dead and the walking not so dead.

ScaryMinds Rates this read as ...

  Hold onto your linen kids, it's going to get rough from here.