Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: chew, Comics, crossed, night of the living dead, walking dead, wasteland

After The Walking Dead

You're a retailer, enjoying the success of The Walking Dead in your store. The comics disappear off the shelf, the collections won't stay in stock, it's like a licence to print money.

But what happens when your customers have burned through them all? And there are simply no more collections to buy? Are you resorted to selling them one comic a month? What else can you suggest they try? Here are some ideas;

1. Y The Last Man. There are no zombies. But there are also no men either. Except one. This post-apocalyptic society trying to rebuild itself after the death of half the population, and the population that had most of the power, most of the knowledge and most of the responsibility. By Bryan K Vaughan and Pia Guerra, it's probably the closest to the constantly wandering in a world that is not what it was, trying to survive and dealing with the strange vagaries the new world throws up, that has a very Walking Dead feel. And at its centre, a separated love story. Yorick even sounds a bit like Rick.

2. Crossed. In many ways the anti-Walking Dead, this has the zombie gore of the Walking Dead, but with an evil intent, and it is an evil within us all brought to the fore. Created by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows, and continued by others, readers will need stronger stomachs than the Walking Dead, and if there's a central theme it's that there is no way back. The world cannot be saved, the best is that people can survive another day. Avatar is publishing this every two weeks now, with a weekly free webcomic as well.

3. Zombieworld. Mike Mignola and Mike Richardson must be kicking themselves that they don't hold off on this one for a few years. This series-of-series project from Dark Horse was an attempt to show a world undergoing a zombie outbreak in its entirety over a long period of time, with rotating creative teams. Sales eventually doomed it, but if you can find copies it would fit right in with a lot of Walking Dead very easily.

4. Invincible. Robert Kirkman's other long standing series, with Ryan Ottley and Cory Walker. This twist on the traditional teenage superhero may not tick many Walking Dead boxes, but there's the soap opera, the ominpresent danger and, yes, the gore along the way. It's written by the same bloke, it shouldn't be a hard sell.

5. Night Of The Living Dead – With Plague Of The Living Dead, Escape Of The Living Dead, and now Night Of The Living Dead, Avatar have slowly created the other zombie comic franchise, with Mike Wolfer continuing the original zombie story across the years after the original film. Possibly the closest thing to The Walking Dead in terms of an ongoing comics traditional zombie narrative still being published, albeit it intermittently.

6. Wasteland. No zombies in sight, but it is a rather post apocalyptic scenario that touches the heart with very human stories a world away. Antony Johnston is clearly into this book for the long haul, and Oni Press have recently relaunched the series.There's a good chunk to keep them going…

7. Marvel Zombies. On the back of the originally limited success of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman was hired to basically do the same to the Marvel Universe. A zombie Marvel world had already been established by Mark Millar, Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips brought it to life. Kirkman soon tired of this project but Marvel have kept it going with a number of other creators, even crossing over with Army Of Darkness over at Dynamite, which was written by John Layman, the author of…

8. Chew. By John Layman and Guillory. Nothing like The Walking Dead in any way shape or form. But it is about to be a TV show, and it's from Image, and its ongoing, so..

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