The Walking Dead, Book 2 [Hardcover]

Kirkman (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Unknown (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582407592
• ISBN-13: 978-1582407593
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,031,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Kirkman is a New York Times bestselling author known for being the cultural zeitgeist of the comic book industry. He maintains one prerogative in every undertaking: quality. It is Kirkman's belief that good people who produce good writing and good ideas make comics people love. Kirkman was recently made partner at Image Comics, and continues to revive the industry with refreshing new characters. AMC is adapting his bestselling series, The Walking Dead, into a TV series (set to debut in October 2010), and his books are among the most popular on the iPhone and iPad's "Comics" app.

On the web:
skyboundent.com
kirkmania.com
twitter.com/RobertKirkman

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book of the Dead, March 12, 2007

By 

Sky (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Walking Dead, Book 2 (Hardcover)

Most of the folks here already know that The Walking Dead saga is a compilation of stories by Robert Kirkman that expand on the story that is well know to any zombie movie fan. The main story. The one started in earnest by George Romero in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead [and was later remade in 1990 (the version that I prefer) by Tom Savini (with Romero oversight)]

Book 2 is the combination of The Walking Dead volumes 3 & 4 and it continues the story of Police Officer Rick Grimes and his band of normal-world-refugees across a world suddenly infected by a Walking Dead sickness..

In The Walking Dead Volume 3, the group finds a new home after a perilous Georgia countryside journey in Volumes 1 & 2. The home that they find in Volume 3 used to keep the bad locked in when the world was normal, but in our players' New World their home will hopefully keep the bad out.

However, there are some inhabitants already in their new home...both alive and undead. Which will be most dangerous to Rick's group? That's the question and plight of volume 3.

As the group settles into their new home in Volume 4, it's time to clean "the big house". Clean house of some bad prior residents. Clean house of some undead residents. And clean house of rules made prematurely...like, "You kill, you die." That rule clearly just won't do in The New World.

Relationships are forged and strengthened, and relationships are betrayed and broken. A new character (Michonne) is introduced, and she brings with her a strange (split?) personality, a dose of unrest for the gang and--most oddly--an unexplained ability to seemingly tame the undead.

I'm not a regular comic book reader. But I was drawn to The Walking Dead by the volume releases that bring the convenience of being able to get several chapters of the story without the month to month waiting for each issue. And I am now hooked.

The Walking Dead volumes are like reading a screenplay with storyboards of a version of Night of the Living Dead that began simultaneously, but in a different part of the country. Yes, it's kind of a rip-off of a story (stories) already told, but the key is that it's done very very well. The zombies are true to the original Romero creation: slow and stupid as opposed to the 28 Days Later (2002) or 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead fast and thinking zombies.

Volumes 1 through 6 are all available individually. There is a hard cover compilation of Volumes 1 & 2 (Book 1) and this, Book 2, is a hard cover edition of volumes 3 & 4. Each volume takes under an hour to get all the way through; each hardcover compilation takes under 2 hours. No matter how you choose to purchase...hardcover or individual volumes...you'll be left wanting more. I have no info on a hard cover release of Volumes 5 & 6, but I'm sure that it will happen if you prefer to wait.

So anyone in need of a very well done zombie fix that you don't put into your DVD player should absolutely get down with The Walking Dead sickness. Add it to your cart, but be sure to start with volume 1 (or Book 1) and read them chronologically.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Once Bitten....., October 4, 2007

By 

Sushi Girl -Laura (Gainesville, Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Walking Dead, Book 2 (Hardcover)

Imagine the world as you know it gone, and you are constantly on the run. Pursuing you slowly but surely are a horde of exhaustless dead. In this graphic novel The Walking Dead 2, our little band of ragtag survivors finds themselves in a prison, literally. Surrounded by a fence, which keeps the dead out, they must now clear the grounds of any "leftovers" which might be hiding in dark corners. It's an enormous task. The good news is that they have a lot of food, and room to move around. The bad news is that the prison was still occupied by a couple of prisoners and they have no idea what crime these men committed to be there. Trust isn't an issue in a world where everyone must have each others back, including strangers. Each person there has lost someone, and human nature is to cling to anything you have left. Families are formed, friendships are tested, and enemies are quickly dispatched. The new rule is "kill and you die" which means kill one of the living and you will become one of the dead, but not the walking dead, just plain dead.
I wont give anything away, but I will say that I was completely shocked, disgusted, appalled, giddy, distressed, moved and keyed up by this novel. I know that they could never put this on film because they wouldn't ever get permission for such staggering "kick in the teeth" carnage. At one point I had to just put the book down and wait for the blood to come back to my face.
I can't stress enough how richly this graphic novel is drawn. The artistry, the sheer genius of it and the rawness just oozes off the pages. I have seen zombies in films that cannot mirror the ones that are on these pages. Their eyes are filmy white, skin peeled back by the rays of the sun, maggots dropping with every shuffled step, putrid organs now black with rot trailing behind. Their fingers, and arms and legs are bent at angles the human form wasn't meant to. It's a feast for the eyes, as well as the brain.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great series!, February 8, 2008

By 

Sean Beschoner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Walking Dead, Book 2 (Hardcover)

This is my new fave series. Can't get enough. If you love romero, things undead, or just character based work, you'll really dig this. I've gotten all 3 hardcovers and now mope about till the new issue hits newsstands. Recommend getting the hc for easy access to all the gooey stuff inbetween. Cover art in the back is a plus. Just go ahead and order it already.