Why I Finally Bought a Walking Dead Comic Today After Downloading 98 Issues

Over the last year I've become a ravenous fan of all things Walking Dead.  But the way I go about consuming the content, both in TV and comic book form, probably wouldn't leave its creators or sponsors too thrilled.


Today though, I did something different, finally sending  some of my own hard-earned cash in the general direction of the pockets of those who work so hard themselves to provide such compelling stories for me to enjoy.


I've seen only a handful of the series' 19 TV episodes at their actual scheduled times, on AMC, with the commercials. After my brother Gabe tipped me off last summer to how good the series' first season had been, I couldn't torrent those episodes fast enough. I started Season 2 as a faithful "every Sunday night at 10" watcher, but by the time the show came back from mid-season hiatus, I'd left my cable connection behind like Jim tied to the tree. Everything I saw after Sophia crawled out of the barn was downloaded on Monday afternoon.


It's even worse where the comic is concerned.  During that loooong hiatus while we waited for Season 2 to get going again, I decided to catch up on the "alternate history" of the characters I'd come to know.  The only problem: I needed to catch up on about 80 issues worth of story, at $3 a pop.

They started similar, but didn't stay that way

Again, torrents became my answer. I think I burned through the entire comic series in 2 days, it was great.  I think I'm like most people who follow both storylines in preferring the comic to the show, and it wasn't long before the wait between issues started to hurt a lot more than the wait between episodes.


Beyond just the primary material, I started feed my craving with the supplemental stuff like webisodes, reviews by Andy Greenwald, and The Talking Dead recap show.  Hell I even watched an episode of Comic Book Men when AMC put it after Walking Dead.


But through it all it was those comics that kept me coming back more than anything else.  I've never been a major comic book fan although I've enjoyed a lot of graphic novels (Maus, especially, comes to mind). The artwork and storyboarding in the comic is done so skillfully and the story is even more engrossing (many of the complaints about the problems with Season 2 of the show were quite justified), what can I say? I guess I just prefer my Rick Grimes murderously unhinged as opposed to psychologically constipated.

Let's see Andy Lincoln pull this off!

Every couple weeks I'd google "Walking Dead Issue X release date" to find out when it was time to hit Frostwire again for the latest issue. I started to find others among my friends who were following both stories just like me, and we'd start to hype each other up as it came close to time for new issues.




Lately, all the hype in TWD land has been building up around next month's release of the milestone issue 100.  Image Comics even set up a special countdown website just for the issue. Like all fans I've spent months anticipating some huge happening in #100, from the deaths of Rick and/or Carl themselves, to the discovery of what caused the zombie outbreak, to a battle with a herd the size of Rhode Island. 


As I've gone deeper down the rabbit hole with this material, I've learned more about the people I've been essentially ripping off for the last year.  I don't actually feel too bad about getting the TV episodes for free online, since I pay for DirecTV at my actual home in Texas (the aforementioned abandoned cable connection was at my temporary residence in Jersey). I figure as long as I'm making some kind of legitimate payment for the right to access AMC programming, it's fine if I access it in whatever way I choose.


I've grown more conflicted over time though about stealing the comic book issues.  


For one thing, I learned fairly quickly that I wouldn't really need to spend $3/issue to complete a collection of TWD comics.  In fact the good people at Image have done a very good job creating a variety of options for fans to get back issue collections, so you don't neccessarily need to spend a fortune.  

Could you steal from this man?

For another, the more interviews I read and watch with TWD creator Robert Kirkman, the more he just seems like a decent guy in general, with a good story as a one-time starving artist who fought to hold on to creative control of his work even at the expense of a quick buck. He seems like someone who deserves to be rewarded, and I'm sure there are plenty of others working with him behind the scenes who do as well.


I started to tell myself "I'll buy the compendiums someday, when the series is finally over" to rationalize all the free entertainment I'd gotten, but even that didn't seem like enough.




So, today, I woke up on the release date of The Walking Dead Issue 99, and instead of firing up the computer, I pedaled over to a local comics shop and plunked down my $2.99.  I actually pondered making the hour long drive down to Red Bank, NJ so I could buy the thing at Jay & Silent Bob's Secret Stash, Kevin's Smith's personal comics shop (featured in AMC's Comic Book Men!), but I freaking hate traffic.  And sure, I could've waited until the actual milestone issue #100 to make it all dovetail together even nicer, but why delay doing the right thing, right?

You're Welcome, Kirkman!!

Of course, I don't claim some grand epiphany that's going to inspire and end to my downloading ways.  I'll still probably use torrents to get episodes of Walking Dead or any other show that my DVR doesn't happen to catch (Homeland was a big fave last winter as well). I think there's a difference between what a lot of people call "pirating" and what I think of as more like "bootlegging." It would be different if I were downloading these shows then trying to make money off them as if they were my own.  I just wanna watch.


But, when it comes to issues of the TWDcomic, I'll be buying my copies instead of bootlegging them from now on. If anything, it proves that, eventually, content creators can convince their fans to start paying for stuff even when it's just as easy to get it for free. Some day I might even actually go back and buy those compendiums.