With excitement building for the launch of The Walking Dead television series on Oct. 31st on AMC, I decided to sit down and give the comic a try.

… twelve volumes later I can barely wait for volume 13.

The Walking Dead (affiliate link) comic by Robert Kirkman tells the story of what happens when a policeman awakes from a coma to discover the world has completely changed, the dead are walking, his family is missing and there seems to be no hope of anyone coming to the rescue.  What do you do?  How do you go on living, and do you even care to?

Each volume covers six issues of the series (although there are other formats that hold 12 issues and 24 issues each), and every last one of them is a page turner.  While the series starts off as a seemingly typical zombie story, but as it progresses it becomes clear the zombies are very much secondary to the story of what happens to your normal, walk-of-the-mill person when the world around them goes insane.  Would you be able to retain your humanity?  Do the rules change?  Can you survive in a world full of walking dead, and even living people who will kill you for your possessions?  At what point do you become no better than the creatures that surround you daily?

I am purposefully staying away from the details of the series because it is utterly gripping, and I have been burning through them as fast as I can turn the pages.  You become totally invested in the fates of these characters, and believe me, considering the circumstances they live under, that can be a mistake.

For those of you who think you can just watch the upcoming TV series and get the story, I can tell you from what footage I’ve seen that they have obviously changed a lot of things from the source material.  Do yourself a favor and pick up the comic and enjoy it in addition to the TV show, and I highly doubt that you’ll regret the purchase.