The Walking Dead creator says the story isn't political (but he's wrong)

"The Walking Dead" co-creator Robert Kirkman says his stories about stray, murderous, reanimated corpses aren't about politics. is it?

"The Walking Dead" co-creator Robert Kirkman is known for his narrative's often bleak realpolitik drama, but he recently made the surprising statement that his longtime zombie horror comic doesn't actually mean politics. Following the story of ex-sheriff Rick Grimes and his team of survivors in a post-apocalyptic hellscape of chaos, murder, and hordes of ravenous zombies, The Walking Dead often deals with the characters that Rick encounters on his travels. The virtues of various theoretical social structures. But is Kirkman really telling the truth?

The Walking Dead takes place in a world torn apart by an apocalypse, where civilization has splintered into various primitive factions ruled primarily by violence. Adversaries such as the ironically named Governor, a malevolent, delusional thug with a penchant for torture and murder, support Kirkman's hypothesis. It's certainly a running theme throughout The Walking Dead that, regardless of their overall power structure, many of the villains living in the post-apocalypse seem inclined to be brutal and authoritarian, throwing down any accusations of anti-right-wing bias. Likewise, many politically left-leaning communities that appear in the narrative, such as the Alexandria Safe Zone, are often portrayed as vulnerable, especially when Lost a strong leadership that made its people more self-determined and equal.

When Kirkman wrote in response to a politically themed joke on the Letters page of The Walking Dead Deluxe #53, Kirkman took the opportunity to express his opinion that despite the obvious possible allegory in the narrative, the Zombies The Walking Dead does not represent political ideas. Though he qualified the statement by describing himself as a "centre-left kind of guy," he explicitly added that "politics matter — but really, it's just a book about people trying to avoid being eaten by zombies.

The Walking Dead's Zombie Apocalypse Transcends Politics

This note is not surprising given that TWD is a cultural phenomenon that transcends political boundaries, has found cult followings on both sides of the political spectrum, and has been criticized by either side for allegedly supporting the other over the years. Surprised. However, Kirkman's comment is likely not the basic truth of the matter, since the story's final antagonist, the Ohio Commonwealth community, almost certainly represents fascist beliefs. Gov. Pamela Milton and her stormtroopers and feudal caste-style operations don't seem to be Not just a fairly straightforward critique of neoconservative values, but a larger condemnation of trickle-down "supply-side" economic theory.

Nonetheless, is Kirkman's answer here an honest fact? There is evidence on both sides of the argument, and the authors may be trying to justify the anti-political nature of these power dynamics found in a post-apocalyptic no man's land. Everyone deserves to be treated fairly, regardless of their political affiliation, and in doing so, Kirkman may philosophically separate his concept of politics from the purely psychological perspective he tries to discuss in his story. Ultimately, the question remains open, and this conceptual wrangling only adds to the literary value of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead.

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