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by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga
(c) 2011
Rating: 
This is my first crack at a book review and the book and I have chosen the book I have because from what I have read the book hasn’t been very well received by fans of the series it belongs to. The book that I am alluding to is The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, the first in a series of novels that explore the origins of characters in the series. I am a recent convert to the graphic novel genre and an even newer fan of The Walking Dead and before buying the book I hadn’t read up to where The Governor is introduced (I did read Book 3 before I read the novel). So I wanted to look up who he was and I read a little bit about the book and I read some reviews prior to reading to book.
I think that is why I may have enjoyed the book the way I did. I read about the twist in the story so while reading I kept expecting it to come and when it happened it wasn’t much of a surprise anymore, but it also didn’t seem like it was reaching too far. That was a complaint from other readers that the twist wasn’t believable, but in a story about zombies you have to be willing to step a bit outside the realm of reality if you want to enjoy it all.
The one time I was disappointed (for a minute) was when I realized it was a novel and not a comic, but once I started reading it I left the disappointment behind. Having just finished being introduced to The Governor when starting this book got me excited to read it. Although The Governor was just ranked #86 on the list of top 100 comic villains by IGN, I would have ranked him much higher because he was a BAD guy and one of my two favourite villains (The Joker being the other). Maybe that also biased me. Either way, I enjoyed the book, I felt like as if I was reading one of the comics, which makes it a good companion to the other Walking Dead books. So if you are a fan of the other books, check out The Rise of The Governor.
T.J.