Walking Dead #123 (2003)

*SPOILER ALERT*SPOILER ALERT*SPOILER ALERT*SPOILER ALERT. Seriously, spoiler alert. Kirkman has finally done it. After going all Verhoeven in #122, he kills Rick. (See, I told you...spoiler alert. You probably should have believed me.) We have an arrow, soaked in zombie infected guts, put through our main character w/ two holes to boot. We are certainly supposed to believe that Rick is dead, will be dead, can not avoid being dead, and is on the path to dead, with three issues of 'very special episode' style saying goodbye to the soon to be dead because he's dead Rick. So...why am I not more affected by this? Glenn's death in issue 100, while scheduled like a sweeps tragedy, was a gut punch. I was furious. FURE-EE-US! This didn't do that. This barely registered. While the storytelling here is fine, I can break it down in two reasons: 1. I can write a way around this....two, in fact, three if we're stretching. Rick doesn't have to die. 2. This arc has me desensitized me quite a bit with its deliberate TV schedule matching. By accelerating the schedule, Kirkman has taken some of the charm out of his dialogue, and run poor Charlie Adlard into the ground. He's really looking rough this issue. Comics work best *SPOILER ALERT* when they follow the schedule that lets them shine as COMICS.