15th Place: The Walking Dead #1 with Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Shelfdust Presents: The Fifty Best #1 Issues

This week it's time to wake up in a strangely empty hospital, as we look at the comic which ended up in 15th place: The Walking Dead #1 by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore!

Rick Grimes, the standard protagonist, is a police officer who gets shot in the line of duty. When he wakes up from a coma, the world is full of zombies. That’s it, that’s the comic! But that early jump in time means everything for the narrative: Rick enters the world and has to adapt to it at the same time as the reader, giving a different sense of depth to his desperate struggle for survival. It’s a strongly told yet simple story, and all the more effective for it. To take a closer look, this week Matt is rejoined by special guest Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou!

Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou is an Eisner-winning writer, critic, vlogger (and comic book letterer) equally known as the host of his Youtube series Strip Panel Naked, as well as the creator, editor, and designer of PanelXPanel, a monthly digital comics magazine. You can find him on Twitter here!

Matt Lune is a critic and podcaster who has written for publications including PanelXPanel, The MNT and Multiversity. You can find him on Twitter here!