Celebrate 15 Years of The Walking Dead

Written by Jon Williams

On October 8, 2003, The Walking Dead issue #1 hit comic shops everywhere. Coming right on the heels of the acclaimed movie 28 Days Later, it helped start a snowball effect to begin the zombie craze that is still building to this day. Now, The Walking Dead is still going strong as a comic series, with issue #184 coming out earlier this week, and creator Robert Kirkman saying the end is still “far away off.” In conjunction with the fifteenth anniversary of the first issue’s release, October 13 has been designated as Walking Dead Day. To help your library celebrate with your patrons, here’s a look at the pop culture phenomenon that The Walking Dead has become.

The namesake television series The Walking Dead premiered, fittingly enough, on Halloween, October 31, 2010. Like the comic, it centered on Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a small-town sheriff who awakes from a coma to find the hospital he is in, as well as the world outside, overrun by zombies. His life becomes a fight for survival as he struggles to figure out what’s going on and search for other survivors, particularly his family. The show has been a sensation, breaking viewership records for a cable series, and has gone on through its various seasons to explore the threat posed by other human survivors, personified by such memorable villains as the Governor (David Morrissey) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), as well as the ever-present zombie menace. This Sunday, October 7, the ninth season debuts, with this being notable as Andrew Lincoln’s last, as the show will shift its focus to Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as they attempt to lead the survivors.

With the show’s success, it’s no surprise that it has spawned a spinoff of its own. Unlike The Walking Dead, which began more or less with the zombie apocalypse already underway, Fear the Walking Dead explores what it was like to experience the world descending into chaos. Debuting in August of 2015, it follows Madison (Kim Dickens) and Travis (Cliff Curtis) as they try desperately to keep their family alive and together. The fourth season, which just concluded on September 30, brought the two shows together with the introduction of Morgan, a character originated by Lennie James in the first season of The Walking Dead and brought back in season 5. Fear the Walking Dead has been picked up for its own fifth season, as it and the original show seem poised to continue far into the future.

The Walking Dead began its life in the comic format, but it has expanded into other areas of publishing as well. In 2011, the novel Rise of the Governor brought the backstory of that intriguing villain to life, and it was followed by The Road to Woodbury and The Fall of the Governor Parts 1 and 2 to round out the story arc. Series creator Robert Kirkman teamed up with writer Jay Bonansinga to tell the Governor’s story, and then Bonansinga continued on with four more novels: Descent, Invasion, Search and Destroy, and Return to Woodbury. Fans of the comic series and the show won’t want to miss these stories that delve into the niches of beloved characters and settings.

With so much content available, and plenty more on the way, fans of The Walking Dead are everywhere, and they’ll be looking for ways to celebrate on October 13. Make sure you have plenty of zombie-related media on your shelves for them to check out. And for those who just can’t wait, point them toward hoopla, where they can find Jay Bonansinga’s audiobooks, as well as the entire comic series, available with no holds and no waiting.