The Walking Dead will be aired by AMC in black and white. I talk
about this below. Not only is it a tribute to the comic book by
Robert Kirkman, but it is also an homage to George A. Romero who
essentially invented the genre with a black and white zombie film
called "Night of the Living Dead."
In a kind of chilling delivery, Carl tells his dad in one of the many season 3 promos for the episode "Suicide Kings" (which airs this Sunday), "I think you should stop being leader." Why is it chilling? Because it shows just how much Rick Grimes has lost it, and it's maybe a turning point in the sense that his own son thinks someone else could do better. But the question is: who could lead better than Rick? I know I'd trust him with my life.
For me, there's only one other person that might be suited to leadership in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse and that's Michonne. We also have yet to see if Tyrese (who was introduced prior to the show going on hiatus last fall) will prove to be the kind of life injection that's needed for Rick to be able to be the force for good that he truly is in a world awash with evil.
Have you read The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor yet? My post on it is HERE. I want to warn you, that I want to talk about a major spoiler that's in the book that's probably still true of the television show.
>>>SPOILER ALERT<<<
Philip is not the guy you think he is. His zombie daughter "Penny" that Michonne killed was in fact his niece. The guy pretending to be Philip is actually Philip's brother. The real Philip is dead (he went crazy) and in order to survive, the brother took on Philip's personality and kind of "became" his dead brother. Is that f*cked up or what?
Anyway, in the trailer for "Suicide Kings," it's pretty much stated that Philip has lost his mind. Well, unfortunately, "The Governor" lost his mind quite a while ago when he adopted zombie Penny as his own spawn. Michonne killing Penny disintegrated whatever sanity that remained (if you can even call it that). Basically, I don't think the Governor has any reason to live and is going to be absolutely consumed with hatred and revenge. It's not much of a stretch to say the worst kind of villain is someone who has nothing to lose.
As bad as the first half of the season was (and let's face it, a kid shot his own mother so it was pretty bad), I think from this point on, it's going to be filled with nail-biting scenes and all things grotesque. I really feel bad for Rick at times. It reminds me of a drawing I once saw done by a Dungeons and Dragons artist called "A Paladin in Hell." I don't know the story behind this drawing, but you know that the knight in shiny armor is outnumbered. And it can't end well.
Rick is totally this paladin in shiny armor besieged by evil on all sides. That's basically the
world of The Walking Dead
This old black and white picture also reminds me to tell you that AMC is retrofitting all of the episodes of "The Walking Dead" into black and white to honor the black and white comic book and zombie craze inventor George A. Romero. They will begin airing them starting with the pilot on February 14th (yes AMC is showing Robert Kirkman some love). Will you be watching "The Walking Dead" in black and white? How do you think it will affect the horror?
And for you gun enthusiasts, here's an infographic that tells you all you'd want to know about Rick Grimes' gun courtesy of my new friend, Anthony Welsch, at the Lucky Gunner. Check out Lucky Gunner if you want to see more :).
So we are a little over a month away before AMC's epic "The Walking Dead" starts up again, hopefully with a high body count and much samurai sword wielding goin' down in the zombie apocalypse. We can blame the Nielsen sweeps for such lulls put upon us by the holidays, but the fact is, if you're like me, blame only goes so far. So what can we do in the meantime?
1) My first suggestion is to read The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.
Seriously. This novel had me on the edge of my seat for two nights as I consumed page after page following the first days of the outbreak. The Governor (known as Philip) and his brother (plus a couple of friends and his daughter Penny) are just like everyone else: caught unawares when the world "mysteriously shifts" and the dead rise up to eat the living.
This book is dripping with gore. My favorite scene is when this small group commandeers a luxurious Cadillac Escalade and try to make their way into downtown Atlanta where there's supposedly, a government refugee camp where they can get supplies, help, medical attention, military protection, and perhaps an explanation as to what the hell is going on.
As a little background, in the early days of the outbreak, power is still available in many areas. There are still television broadcasts going on along with updated news programs. But as the hours march on, more television stations drop off the air, and broadcasters turn to previously recorded shows. The way the author writes it, it's eerie in a very normal way. So really, there's no reason for our group to know that Atlanta has been overrun. Just that it seems suspicious that the television stations are all so quiet.
Well this Cadillac Escalade is essentially a rolling tank. And Phillip gets caught downtown watching zombies come out of skyscrapers like clowns coming out of a clown car. There's literally thousands of them, and they get cut off on all sides. So he slams his Escalade into four wheel drive, revs it up to sixty miles an hour, and just cuts a swath through the walking dead, blowing them up, running them down, and creating so much "zombie grease" under the tires and carriage that it hydroplanes through a building and gets wrapped around a concrete pillar. And behind them, the zombies are roaring, relentless, and hungry.
2) You should watch all of the episodes of High School of the Dead on Hulu. You don't have to have a Hulu Plus membership. It's totally free. You just have to sign in using Facebook to show that you're old enough to be watching anime with such "adult/gory" content.
High School of the Dead is exactly how I would picture The Walking Dead in Japan. Only here we have young adults being eaten alive. The outbreak starts simple enough at a school with a zombie being mistaken by the principle as a trouble maker trying to break into the school's secure grounds. When confronted, the principle gets bit and quickly spreads the contagion. So the faculty ends up eating young adults. A particularly chilling part of the anime is when the voice of someone in the office is shouting "Stop! It hurts! It hurts! Stop!" and then screams when the mic goes dead. After that, there's a stampede as kids try to get out of the high school. A pair of girls (vowing to protect each other) gets separated, and the one stands over the other horrified, watching her friend get torn to pieces by zombies. It's great! And yes, for guys out there who like to see Japanese school girls in their school uniforms, there's lots of that going on.
3) Watch 13-year-old Nick Mastrangelo's animated video of The Walking Dead's Daryl Dixon in action. It involves machine guns, a magic crossbow, and even robots. You should watch this and then ask yourself what you were capable of doing with a computer in the 8th-grade.
4) Watch the new "Evil Dead" trailer which is being billed as the scariest movie of 2013. This trailer is Not Suitable for Work. It is for mature audiences and features gore, swearing, and a disturbing scene where a woman cuts her tongue in half. But for the "Evil Dead" purists out there, it should be quite satisfying. It looks less campy than the Bruce Campbell/Sam Raimi version, and the Necronomicon looks pretty convincing. In case you don't know, the Necronomicon is an H.P. Lovecraft prop used in most of his Cthulhu mythos stories. It's not something you'd ever want to read from. In the least it rouses the dead, and that's never a good thing.
Housekeeping:
Next week I shall be attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I decided that I am going to take a laptop so I will strive to blog about C.E.S. And yes, I am going to grab as much free stuff as I can possibly get. I'm going to point out to every vendor that I work for the State of Utah and we do demonstrations for people all of the time SO HOOK ME UP homey! :) Mostly I will be going to the Silvers Summit and taking a look at Smart Home Technologies and basically anything that "differently-abled" people could use to make their lives more independent. That's my career (using assistive technology to provide independence and a more meaningful life to those who could use some help). I install cameras and environmental controls that are voice-operated, I install voice-operated computers in people's homes, and strive to stay on the cutting edge of technology.
Anyway, I hope my laptop doesn't get stolen in the airport. I think I've taken every precaution.
If you have time today, please visit Laura Eno's blog as it's a stop on my book tour. You can find her HERE.
Additionally, on Saturday I will be at the Indie Book Blog. I think Oculus is getting a review. You'll find that blog HERE. Oh well, I guess that's the chance we authors take, right?
FREE MONEY>>>Also, the $50.00 Amazon Gift Card promotion is still going on. Go HERE for the daily tweet which has been updated. The gift card giveaway ends this Monday.
Have a great weekend. Monday, I shall be doing a cover reveal for Ellie Garratt's new book.
