First it must be said what an achievement this issue represents. One hundred installments of a black and white, independent, zombie horror book is remarkable in any market and any medium. It is unfortunate then that this may be the moment when I am done with The Walking Dead.

This is a book executed with such great skill and has been so good for such a long time that maybe its growing flaws are overlooked. It has slid into formula it seems, lull for a while … shock, lull for a while … shock. Trouble is that with repetition it gets less and less powerful. And as shocking Walking Dead moments go, the one in this issue just doesn’t rank up there, certainly not on an emotional level. It would be fair to have expected something far more impactful really than what we got here and what we did get relied more on gore to get a reaction than a real emotional response.

The formula has robbed me of a connection to these characters and their story, I have been trained to know what’s coming and have become too aware of the machinery of the plot that is at work behind the story. Kirkman has often made fun of the big two for trotting out the same old playbook, repeating the same stories and big stunts to keep people reading … maybe he should stop doing that.

The Walking Dead has asked the question what happens once you are the survivor of an apocalypse, what becomes of people after the credits of most zombie movies? The series has been fascinating in its exploration of trying to answer that question, of following the human drama of what decisions are forced on a person and how those decisions change them. But I would contend that The Walking Dead hasn’t had much new to say on the subject in quite some time and has slowly slid into what happens to most long running serials, becoming a perpetuation of the soap opera of its main characters. It is a very well executed and unconventional soap opera I grant you but still something less than it once was.