Small-town sheriff Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma to find the world overrun by flesh-eating corpses. As he leads a small group of survivors through Georgia, they quickly realize that the walking dead are secondary to the violent brutality human beings inflict on one another when society crumbles.

Before the TV series, Robert Kirkman's original black-and-white comic set the bar for survival horror. The raw contrast of Charlie Adlard's linework emphasizes the bleakness of the apocalypse. Compendium 1 on Amazon covers the iconic early arcs—from Rick's hospital wake-up to the terrifying confrontation with The Governor at the Prison.