10 Hugely Influential Comics That Changed Everything
10. The Walking Dead (Image Comics)
The Walking Dead is not only a long running and massively successful comic book series, but a viable franchise in many different media forms. The television show, which first aired in 2010, is a ratings juggernaut for the AMC network, and the series has birthed a prequel series of prose novels. There have been two different video games, one based off the comic continuity and one set in the world of the TV show. Fans can also buy Walking Dead t-shirts and hoodies and action figures. Basically, The Walking Dead is a very big deal. Series writer Robert Kirkman couldn't have had any conception of the future unprecedented success of his black and white zombie comic when it was first published by Image in 2003. Along with artists Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, Kirkman wisely focussed the stories on the human survivors in this post apocalyptic world, as they fought and clawed every day to survive in a land overrun with 'walkers'. The Walking Dead is influential not because it launched a thousand different zombie related imitators (although Kirkman did write Marvel Zombies in 2005), but rather that as Image Comics' flagship title, the tremendous revenue generated from it can be funnelled into other creative ventures. Image may not have been able to produce so many quality series in 2014, from so many creators at the top of their games, if Kirkman's zombie opus hadn't hit so big. Kirkman himself is now a partner at the company and runs his own imprint, Skybound. Image is clearly on an upward trajectory, with many of their trade paperbacks routinely cracking The New York Times Best Seller lists for graphic fiction, and this sort of mainstream respectability might not have been possible without The Walking Dead.
