Is The Walking Dead the best comic series of the decade?

[Splatoon]

Personally, I'd throw series like Atomic Robo, Goon, Criminal, Scalped and Nextwave in the best of the decade along with stuff like Punisher MAX, but I don't think Walking Dead even knocks off Crossed as best zombie story. I think RickV nailed it when he said Kirkman is great at the concept, less so the long form storytelling, which is why my favorite series of his is far and away Destroyer, a comic that just puts the pedal down in issue #1 and feels packed to the brim but perfectly contained at five issues.

[RickV]

Obviously that being the one of his I haven't read...might have to correct it.

[S. Earl]

Walking Dead is entertaining, but it certainly has a formula. How many times at this point has there been 6 issues or more been spent at "This place might be safe... we can live here. UNTIL WE CANT BECAUSE SOMEONE IS CRAZY... BUT RICK IS CRAZIER!!!!!" I think if it ended around issue 75 or so it would have been a masterpiece.

The answer to the question of what the best comic of the decade is, is Scalped. Unless the ending gets horribly botched, and I don't see that happening.

[Tom Morris]

so when we are talking "comics" we talking only printed american comics I'm guessing right?


P.S.
I think bother Y and 100 bullets ended poorly. For me both had bad last two issues. Lost them some points in my book.

I do agree that Y didn't have the perfect ending that it probably could have, but it fit with the overall series.  I do need to get on 100 Bullets.  For best endings, PUNISHER MAX by Jason Aaron can't be topped for the last decade.

[Jordan]

At a certain point it breaks immersion from the world to me. I don't believe the extent to which this one guy escapes from everything is possible. Especially against the confines of the genre we are working in. In a typical two hour Zombie movie how many of the main cast are left at the end? Multiply 2 hours by how long the book has been going and you begin to see where my brain goes while reading it. Also I don't think Kirkman is a good enough writer to disguise that fact by making the series particularly engrossing.

This thread is actually kinda interesting seeing what people would throw out in this category and realizing that the ones that keep getting mentioned (Y and Fables) both completely fell flat for me as well. 

Very interestting take.  I've always thought the "everybody dies" aspect of zombie movies and the genre in general, to be be dumb.  I've never thought that zombies would win in the end and think it's perfectly reasonable for people to survive for years. 

[evaD]

Very interestting take.  I've always thought the "everybody dies" aspect of zombie movies and the genre in general, to be be dumb.  I've never thought that zombies would win in the end and think it's perfectly reasonable for people to survive for years. 

Have you ever read World War Z? It's written as though by a reporter doing a retrospective on the Zombie Apocalypse. He interviews survivors from different parts of the world and as they each tell their story it weaves together the tale from outbreak through infestation to defeat of the zombies.

[Jordan]

Have you ever read World War Z? It's written as though by a reporter doing a retrospective on the Zombie Apocalypse. He interviews survivors from different parts of the world and as they each tell their story it weaves together the tale from outbreak through infestation to defeat of the zombies.

Yah, I listened to the audiobook, which has a large cast and people like henry rollins or alan alda playing different roles.  I really enjoyed it.  It's probably what formed my opinions about the ultimate outcome of a zombie outbreak the most. 

[RickV]

Very interestting take.  I've always thought the "everybody dies" aspect of zombie movies and the genre in general, to be be dumb.  I've never thought that zombies would win in the end and think it's perfectly reasonable for people to survive for years. 

Ahh that is where we differ since the only kind of these stories I have ever liked is the very confined really no word or context for what the rest of the world is going through.

[Jeppe]

For anyone who's really interested in how the world at large would react to a zombie infestation (and who doesn't mind learning a lot about international relations theory), I really recommend Dan Drezner's new-ish book 

[Julian Lytle]

20th/21st Century Boys

[RickV]

Man why you got to post that Urasawa is totally cheating, he is on too much of another level than like 90% of what comes out that it is unrealistic to compare him to comics as a whole.

[steve bryant]

Man why you got to post that Urasawa is totally cheating, he is on too much of another level than like 90% of what comes out that it is unrealistic to compare him to comics as a whole.

I respect the level of craft and his accomplishments, but his artwork leaves me cold.

[Dean S.]

I've been pretty critical of the dive TWD has taken the last 3-4 months, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with something better.  Even with this kinda lull period we've had, I still download the darn thing on my iPad and read it while eating my lunch. 

The other candidate for me would be Scalped, but TWD was awesome before Scalped even existed and could well be awesome after Scalped is gone. 

I strongly suspect that the current lull in TWD is temporary because it just has to be, right?  And issue #100 is coming up and I'm sure that something shocking is being saved for that.

[Julian Lytle]

I respect the level of craft and his accomplishments, but his artwork leaves me cold.

What about the writing? I get you but in the end for me in this conversation I think he made some of the best comics of the last 10 years. I also wanted to make it more than just America in this piece.