What Do We Do After the End of the World

Lately I have been enjoying three different post-apocalyptic stories.

First off is Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard. I love this book in trade format. Essentially a cop wakes up after being in the hospital and finds out the world has been turned into flesh eating Zombies. Yeah I hate when that happens too. The tag line for the book is a great one and says "In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living." In this book our hero Rick learns he is not the only survivor and eventually finds his family and has put together a rag tag group of survivors and they are constantly fighting a battle to survive.

Second is War of the Worlds: Second Wave by Michael Alan Nelson and Chee. This is actually what the title says it is. The second wave of invaders comes to Earth and this time they are not just dying off. So far it is ground level view of some survivors.

The third and so far in my opinion the best is Wasteland by Anthony Johnston and Chris Mitten. This is a book that is picking up 100 years after the disaster called the "Big Wet" and so far we are focused on a character called Michael and are learning what cultures and what types of societies have evolved since the disaster.

All three books bring a few things into focus. First and foremost is life comes into sharper focus when living is a struggle for survival. It goes back to Maslow's hiearchy of needs, but done in a graphic story form it is captivating. I guess given that I'm more of intellectual then a handy man type I figured I'm worthless after the disaster so I want to see how others handle it. Second is the look at what someone imagines our society will rebuild into, so far it is not a pretty picture.

Still all three series are all unbridled fun.

Wasteland appears to be mapped out the best and almost is unfolding as a novel that has been written and each issue is a chapter.

Walking Dead is great fun, but I believe that they have to move a little faster with the story as the story has slowed down a lot. Also I believe some perspective as to how the rest of the world is surviving would be of interest.

Second Wave has it moments, but is the weakest of the series. The incredible slow start to this story was bad enough, but again we need to move forward and also get some bigger picture perspective occasionally. I enjoy the view from the main character's perspective, but it's like each issue takes only a day or two to happen and at that rate it will be issue 50 before we learn anything of the big picture.

Still I think the appeal for me is the same as it is with other science fiction novels I have read and other TV series I have enjoyed and that is the opportunity to see new worlds. The apocalypse portion of these stories appeals to my idea that we have way too many people on this globe and a mass house cleaning might not be a totally horrible idea.

I'm sure today's date got me thinking about this subject, but it was not on a conscious level. Still when talking about today I always think of the heroes that men and women of the New York Police, Fire and other departments were on that day. They were incredible and I hope I could be as brave as those people were if the need ever arises.