The Walking Dead

Where’s the Sex?

The Walking Dead, Sex, & Parenting in the Zombie Apocalypse

Emma Vossen

Just over a month ago, Robert Kirkman sat down for an interview on BBC America to discuss what makes his series The Walking Dead a transmedia success. Amid groans and jokes from other men on set, Kirkman spoke about his series for what it is: a soap opera. He explained that “Twilight is to Dracula as The Walking Dead is to Romero movies. I’m the Stephanie Meyer of Zombies. I watched Romero movies and I was like, yeah, but what if they had more kissing?” (BBC). Kirkman agued that it isn’t the zombies that make his comics and show so popular, but rather the traditional soap opera elements such as romance, betrayal, and sex. The zombies are merely the backdrop, the fictional conditions which make the show and the comic socially acceptable to like. Continue Reading →

The Talking Dead

Dialogue Trees & Player Agency in The Walking Dead

LAUREN BURR

Greg Miller at IGN boldly stated that “people will reference the series over and over as the benchmark for story-telling in games. And historically, it will stand as the game that reinvented or at least repopularized adventure games.” And he’s not the only critic expressing such high opinions. Most recently, The Walking Dead took home the “game of the year” award at the 2012 VGAs. So why such great disparity? And what does it mean when a mechanically simple point-and-click adventure game–which gives a player almost no room for exploration or alternate gameplay–purports to “tailor” a “story” to each individual player’s choices? Continue Reading →