Written by: Robert Kirkman
Art by: Charlie Adlard
Coloring by: Cliff Rathburn
Cover By: Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn
Publisher: Image
Alright! Here we go, time to roll up your blood stained sleeves and dig in! The pussyfooting stops right here! The Walking Dead #95 finally delivers on the promise of exciting new stories with outsiders. Jesus vouches for Rick and his crew and they granted access to a massive walled-in community. There’s two hundred plus people in this well-established community and a bad-ass hotel that acts as kind of headquarters. We introduced to the boss of the town that looks like a combination between a casino-owner and sleazy used-car salesman. He thinks he’s the shit, and let’s Rick know it.
Right in the middle of giving Rick the five-cent tour there is suddenly some action. One of their other scouts is back from a peace-keeping pow-wow and shit didn’t go over too well. Rick can’t seem to keep the fuck out of trouble if his life depended on it. Which in this case it might. After big-boss man get’s into with his scout, Rick finds himself in the middle of a knife fight. I can’t give away too much more than that, but some serious shit goes down. Fucking Rick… Jesus vouched for you, and you get into a fight like 5 minutes later. Is that how you repay him? Christ almighty!! In all seriousness though, it looks like this trading expedition is going to end badly for Rick’s camp. Everything seemed to be on the level, but this turn coat scout flipped the fuck out and ruined everything. The story is pretty wide-open from here and it sets up an interesting conflict that can be explored in various different tangents. It ends in a Kirkman signature cliffhanger that leave you guessing and wanting more. My guess is that in part 4 all hell breaks loose and we are going to see some serious human on human violence. It should prove interesting.
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The art team on this continues to knock it out of the park. Adlard & Rathuburn constantly delivers what the story ask for. In this case it’s scope, scale, and little bit of opulence and a ton of grit. The walled-in community looks huge, and that hotel was lavishly rendered. The knife fight was exciting and absolutely grimy. Blood, mud, ruckus; it felt like a scene cut straight from Deadwood. My only critique is on conceptual aspects of the cover. The way it’s composed it feels more like a panel than a cover. There’s just a bit too much negative space on the top and all the action is crammed on the bottom. It’s fucking nitpicky, I know, but when you are executing on such a high-level that’s the sort of thing that stands out. A solve would be to pull back a little on the scene an reveal more of the fight, or even use an overhead shot and get it all in. But really, when all is said and done, it’s one of the most consistently good-looking black & white books out there.
In A Larger World is shaping up to be quite the arc. What started as a slow-burn has ignited into an explosive and fresh story for The Walking Dead. War, siege, feuds, raids are all on the table now. The stage is set for conflict and I for one am ready for an epic warlord saga in the world of a zombie apocalypse. Like Game of Thrones but with zombies. Check out this issue and see what all the fuss is about.
Story: 9
Art: 9
Jerry Nelson
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