I wonder if anyone has done a study to find out what percentage of the viewers of AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD ever read the comic book series that inspired it? And what is the percentage of new readers who have jumped on the book since the show debuted? I’m certain there’s been a bump in sales for them, but how big, exactly? Do the new sales figures continue to grow, as do the ratings for the show, or have they stabilized? Have they decreased since the original bump? So many questions. Here’s another one: How many viewers of the show are even aware of the ways in which it deviates from the comics that spawned it? How many of them care? (This last one I feel confident in answering: Not many of them.)
I kinda feel like, if they aren’t buying the comics, they don’t qualify as real fans. That’s a little hypocritical of me, as I have in the past gone to see movies based on comic book properties that I don’t regularly read. The rules for THE WALKING DEAD are different, though, aren’t they? In the sense of fairness, considering the monumental success of the show, some of that love should be doled out to the books, shouldn’t it? Anyway, there’s a percentage of TWD fans who get excited when the show’s and the comic’s storylines converge, so that demographic ought to celebrate that Dwight, who is a major character from the comics, is returning, and that he will bear a stronger resemblance, this go-round, to the guy depicted in the funny books.