I gotta be honest. I'm absolutely terrified about the upcoming AMC series based on these Walking Dead comics. 
 I'm not scared of the zombies. It's the idea that Frank Darabont is doing the show. Sure, to most people he's the guy who had Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman get busy livin' instead of gettin' busy dying in Shawshank Redemption. Or he's the guy who directed Tom Hanks getting choked up as he was about to roll on two in The Green Mile. But to me, Darabont is the twisted bastard who came up with that shattering conclusion to yet another Stephen King adaptation, The Mist. (I've read that King told Darabont that he wouldn't have had the balls to write that ending even if he would have thought of it.) 
 So I shudder to think what's going to happen when Darabont teams up with another guy who is more than willing to do the unthinkable in his stories, Robert Kirkman. Seriously, I think the two of them may be able to create a vortex of soul-crushing horror that will cause every single person on the planet to lose their will to live. 
 But it'll probably be a great show. 
 In the first volume of The Walking Dead, Kirkman wrote an introduction where he explained that he wanted to do a comic about zombies because whenever he saw a movie about a zombie apocalypse, he always wanted to see what happened next after the credits rolled. He explained that the comics would be a chance to do an almost endless series of post-apocalyptic zombie stories. 
 While he's gotten his wish and done a brilliant job, he's also tapped into something else. Usually, a horror story ends after a single book, film or a show. Yes, there could be sequels, but by and large, even in the really dark stuff, there's always an END to it. Even if all the stupid teenagers get chainsaw massacred, they were dead and the movie is over. 
 With the comics, Kirkman's writing makes you really care about the characters. His willingness to go to the really dark places and subject the characters you like to a variety of physical and psychological horrors gives the comics their dark and gritty flavor. 
 But it's because there isn't an ending that The Walking Dead really gets under your skin after a while. Because after all the evil shit that's happened to the survivors, it just keeps getting worse. By surviving, they have to endure. And enduring means waking up in the same horror show day after day. What Kirkman has done is to bring an overwhelming feeling of dread into these comics because at this point, no matter how shitty things are, we know that it can always get worse. Which is exactly what it will be like when the zombies have taken over. 
 It's hard to read in a black-and-white comic. I don't know if I'm going to handle seeing what another guy who has shown he's willing to push at the same limits will be able to do in live action color. And oh, yeah. It's going to premiere on Halloween night. 
 Eek!