Here's something you might be interested in.
Following is an email conversation between myself and comic book scripter (and Blockbuster employee) Jamie Ralph Gardner, that resulted when I commented that I WON'T be tuning in to season two AMC's inexplicably popular series The Walking Dead.
JAS: I feel like an idiot for having watched Walking Dead week after week, waiting for one original thing to happen. I shan't be fooled again.
JAMIE: What have you against the Walking Dead TV series? How many episodes have you seen? You are the only person that I know who does not like it. It's one of my favorite TV series. I was already a fan of the comic book before watching the show. Steve Crompton also likes the show and he has never read the comic book. Greg Pharis [owner San Diego Comics and Collectibles retail store] likes both the TV show and the comic book. When the show is mentioned in the store, his customers usually praise it.
At Blockbuster Video, everyone who works there has liked it. This is of course referring to people who have seen it. Even customers across the board like it. It's rare that a show gets praised so much. Many people thinks it's great, not just good. The Internet Movie Database has a rating of 8.8 out of 10.
JAS: Pretty sure I saw every ep of the first season, tho I felt annoyed each time, waiting for it to go somewhere. Countless little goofups I can't get past. Like the cop riding a horse into Atlanta, and the highway leaving the city is littered with abandoned with cars while the highway going TO the city is empty.
As if, amidst the world being destroyed by zombies, drivers wouldn't hop onto the other effin highway.
And smearing themselves with corpse residue, so they can walk amidst zombies without being "smelled." If zombies don't breathe, they don't smell. If they DO breathe, and are attuned to nothing other than finding food (as inferred by the scientist in the season finale), wouldn't zombies be able sense the heat coming off the humans?
More: almost 10 million people live in Georgia as of 2010, and Rip Van Cop-winkle manages to find some of the few human survivors and is brought directly to a camp, WHERE HIS GIRL HAPPENS TO BE. This stretched credulity to its furthest limits.
The narrative convenience of having zombie-gestation time vary from a few minutes to days is an insult to the intelligence. It's a lame and lazy excuse to be able to have scenes where instant zombies attack, AND one where someone gets to sit with a dead loved one overnight awaiting the change. If you're gonna create a zombie world, there should be finite rules that do not deviate according to the whim of a lazy writing team.
And a bad guy chained to something who is found to have cut off his hand to escape; yeah, the world really needs another one of those. Lazy, stupid, lazy...
For that matter, the world didn't need yet another zombie story, at least not until someone has a new, original idea. It CAN be done. I totally dug the speedy superzombies of the Dawn of the Dead remake, or whichever movie had zombies outrunning cars! THAT's a new (or at least unusual) way to tell the story.
Okay, Reader readers - what do YOU think?
Following is an email conversation between myself and comic book scripter (and Blockbuster employee) Jamie Ralph Gardner, that resulted when I commented that I WON'T be tuning in to season two AMC's inexplicably popular series The Walking Dead.
JAS: I feel like an idiot for having watched Walking Dead week after week, waiting for one original thing to happen. I shan't be fooled again.
JAMIE: What have you against the Walking Dead TV series? How many episodes have you seen? You are the only person that I know who does not like it. It's one of my favorite TV series. I was already a fan of the comic book before watching the show. Steve Crompton also likes the show and he has never read the comic book. Greg Pharis [owner San Diego Comics and Collectibles retail store] likes both the TV show and the comic book. When the show is mentioned in the store, his customers usually praise it.
At Blockbuster Video, everyone who works there has liked it. This is of course referring to people who have seen it. Even customers across the board like it. It's rare that a show gets praised so much. Many people thinks it's great, not just good. The Internet Movie Database has a rating of 8.8 out of 10.
JAS: Pretty sure I saw every ep of the first season, tho I felt annoyed each time, waiting for it to go somewhere. Countless little goofups I can't get past. Like the cop riding a horse into Atlanta, and the highway leaving the city is littered with abandoned with cars while the highway going TO the city is empty.
As if, amidst the world being destroyed by zombies, drivers wouldn't hop onto the other effin highway.
And smearing themselves with corpse residue, so they can walk amidst zombies without being "smelled." If zombies don't breathe, they don't smell. If they DO breathe, and are attuned to nothing other than finding food (as inferred by the scientist in the season finale), wouldn't zombies be able sense the heat coming off the humans?
More: almost 10 million people live in Georgia as of 2010, and Rip Van Cop-winkle manages to find some of the few human survivors and is brought directly to a camp, WHERE HIS GIRL HAPPENS TO BE. This stretched credulity to its furthest limits.
The narrative convenience of having zombie-gestation time vary from a few minutes to days is an insult to the intelligence. It's a lame and lazy excuse to be able to have scenes where instant zombies attack, AND one where someone gets to sit with a dead loved one overnight awaiting the change. If you're gonna create a zombie world, there should be finite rules that do not deviate according to the whim of a lazy writing team.
And a bad guy chained to something who is found to have cut off his hand to escape; yeah, the world really needs another one of those. Lazy, stupid, lazy...
For that matter, the world didn't need yet another zombie story, at least not until someone has a new, original idea. It CAN be done. I totally dug the speedy superzombies of the Dawn of the Dead remake, or whichever movie had zombies outrunning cars! THAT's a new (or at least unusual) way to tell the story.
Okay, Reader readers - what do YOU think?