The thing that makes "The Walking Dead" unique and interesting is that it's a zombie movie that never ends—that's the log line or whatever. To do a zombie movie that's based on that? Kinda dumb. The whole idea behind the book is that it's a long-term exploration on the characters and their situation and how they're dealing with these problems over a long period of time, the different things that happen to the characters and how it affects and changes the characters. You can do that in a series of movies, but it's not ideal. It's not really common for people to go, "Oh, I'll buy this thing and commit to making 10 movies based on it!" So, the TV show makes way more sense to me for all of those reasons. Robert Kirkman talks The Walking Dead at Comic Book Resources. Via io9.

News of the upcoming AMC adaptation encouraged me to check out the trade paperbacks of Robert Kirkman's zombie comic The Walking Dead (wiki), whose ten-book / sixty-issue run I subsequently blew through in about three days (including some just-can't-stop reading until 4 or 5 AM last night). The Walking Dead is one of a handful of books like Y: The Last Man or Planetary that are just painfully, painfully good, and since neither of those titles are being published regularly it may just be the best title on the market right now. Or so it seems to me now, in the full throes of this terrible zombie high. Kirkman describes his intent in the introduction to Days Gone By to create the feel of a George Romero film that never ends, and damned if he doesn't nail it. Unflinching, brutal, innovative, and intensely unforgiving, with an acutely Mbembian sense of what survival is and what it means, this is a must-read instant classic of the genre.

I promise you won't regret picking it up.

Image Comics has generously put the first issue online to get you started. Then head down to your local comic shop to get the trades.