‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ is a Welcome Addition to the Franchise

I’m not gonna lie. I fell off The Walking Dead wagon years ago. Like a lot of fans, I checked out when Steven Yeun’s Glenn was killed off. And while the series, and its subsequent spinoffs, continued on, I never returned to the franchise. Until now.

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Hard NOC Life 209: Rated-R Super Starro

Dominic and Keith are back to continue talking about HBO Max’s Snyder Cut (now that Dom has finished it) and the just released Suicide Squad sequel trailer. They also break down the latest episode of Disney+’s The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, as well as Marvel’s decision to split from Diamond and San Diego Comic-Con’s in-person return. What’s nerd poppin’: Amazon’s Invincible animated series and Chloe Zhao’s Oscar-nominated film, Nomadland. Finally, the NOC’s newest contributor, Sophia Soto, speaks to Robert Rovner and Jessica Queller, the executive producers of The CW’s Supergirl, about the show’s final season.

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How AMC Ruined ‘The Walking Dead’ (In Five Simple Steps)

I used to go hard for TheWalking Dead. I joined the party in early Season 2 after binge watching all of Season 1 on a rainy weekend. I was obsessed. Not only did I buy Season 1 almost immediately, I demanded everyone I know and love watch it too. It was that good. 

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Now or Later: We’ll Need to Deal with That Death on The Walking Dead

This essay contains spoilers for both the television series and the comic book.

I don’t have cable. So I usually have to wait until the day after to watch The Walking Dead. As luck would have it, I’m in a cheap hotel with complementary AMC with my daughter when the episode “Thank You” airs. Six years old, my daughter is in the bath and complains about the sound from my television show — the two things that she fears the most, while awake and in her nightmares, are racists and zombies. Our compromise is that I turn the sound down and the captions on. And then I watch one of my favorite characters in pop culture get deluged in zombie claws, teeth, blood and guts.

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Giveaway: Win a Walking Dead Glenn Action Figure

by Phil Yu | Originally posted at Angry Asian Man

AMC hit zombie drama The Walking Dead returns for its fifth season this Sunday, October 12. Last season left off on a bit of a cliffhanger, with Rick and his merry crew of walker slayers finally reuniting, but captured and locked away in a train car by some mysterious new adversaries. How will they get out this jam?

And of course, we get to see Steven Yeun as our favorite Asian American zombie apocalypse survivor Glenn Rhee. According to this interview in Entertainment Weekly, Steven says Glenn “is a leader” in season five.

So check it. To celebrate the return of The Walking Dead, I’m giving away some official Walking Dead Series Five Action Figures by McFarlane Toys. Who wants a Glenn action figure? Scroll down for details.

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Staging the Action in the Pages of Thief of Thieves

by Shawn Martinbrough

Thumbnail layouts are the essential blueprint for every page that I draw. This is the stage where I do all of my storytelling editing such as choosing angles, the lighting, etc.

In this sequence from Thief of Thieves #17 written by Andy Diggle, my deadline was looming so the layout is looser than I typically prefer. It might look like chicken scratch but it was enough for me to quickly nail down the flow of Andy’s script and keep things moving.

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Designing the Covers for Image’s Thief of Thieves

by Shawn Martinbrough

Designing comic book covers can be a challenging process especially when you’re also drawing the interiors. Since covers are done months in advance (for sales and solicitation purposes), the final script typically hasn’t been completed yet. As the artist, you have to create an image that teases the story without knowing exactly what that story is.

Usually, I’ll turn a cover design around within a day or two after I get the concept. Once approved, I’ll turn around the cover a few days after that. The biggest hurdle is stopping the process of drawing the sequential pages to shift gears and tackle the cover.

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NOC Recaps The Walking Dead: Blackened Catfish

Walking-Dead-Season-4-PosterThe Walking Dead, AMC’s smash-hit zombie apocalypse action-drama, owes much of its success to the general interest in and support for gore-infested violence by American audiences. This season’s premiere raked in 16.1 million viewers, and devoured more 18-49 year old view attention than this season’s N.F.L. games. Thanks to Jenn Reappropriate’s conference commitments, I watched and live-tweeted “Infected!”, last-night’s episode , and my perspective and mild spoilers follow.

Robert Kirkman’s dystopia appealed as a comic because, during most of its run, the narrative focus highlighted human survivors. Rick’s post-traumatic insanity, Sophia’s alternate mental universe, Carl’s sociopathic nihilism, and even Michonne’s clumsy sexuality all fell within what reader would recognize as human responses to the unreasonable events presented by The Walking Dead. One of the most useful moments in the comic happens somewhere in the Prison, when Rick, in a frenzied monologue, explains the nature of the new world no meek can inherit.

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Zombies! NOC ‘Em Dead with Angry Asian Man

With The Walking Dead breaking ratings records and topping direct market sales charts, what better time to discuss the undead phenomenon on Hard N.O.C. Life? So we wrap up Walker Week with an in-depth look at both The Walking Dead comic and television series and the genre of zombie fiction writ large.

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Robert Kirkman is the Frank Miller of Zombies

This month marks the 10th anniversary of Robert Kirkman’s ongoing epic The Walking Dead. Image Comics is marking the special occasion by releasing an anniversary edition of issue #1, colored by Dave Stewart. If you haven’t been reading this book — particularly if you are a fan of the AMC TV adaptation — then you should be. The Walking Dead isn’t just a great comic book, it’s a revolutionary comic book; one that fundamentally altered the zombie landscape and helped usher in the zombie Golden Age of today.

In fact, I’d even venture so far as to say that Robert Kirkman is the zombie Frank Miller.

Wait, wait, wait: before your brain explodes from the nerd-rage, hear me out on this one.

This post contains a few spoilers of The Walking Dead comic. Please read on with care.

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#NOCemDead: We Live-Tweeted the Walking Dead Premiere

Last night, millions of viewers tuned in to AMC’s The Walking Dead for its fourth season premiere. And the Nerds were no exception. Throughout the broadcast, our very own Jenn Fang took to twitter to live-tweet the whole thing. Some choice tweets are below, but you can view the whole stream on Storify or follow @TheNerdsofColor on twitter. Use the hashtag #NOCemDead to join in on the fun as we attempt to live-tweet the whole season!

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Don’t Click — Dead Inside

The chill in the air — and those moans in the distance — can only mean one thing: The Walking Dead is back! We at The Nerds of Color are very excited for the return of everyone’s favorite zombie drama, especially now that Lawrence Gillard Jr. has joined the castWire fans, rejoice! D’Angelo and Cutty fighting zombies! So in honor of the show’s return, we are christening this week “Walker Week.” And in Nerdland, the Walker Week begins on a Friday (so what if Solomon Grundy was born on a Monday?).

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