When This arrived in the mail i picked it up and started to read. Now after just finishing it ill say this.

WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE COMING OUT!!!!!!!!!???????

I would give this a ten if i could but alas a 5 will have to do.

I mean it, this book literately made me shout at it as I was reading it. So much has happened in this one volume. I wont say anything cause I hate when spoilers are left in reviews.

But in this book actually has me scratching my head cause im just trying to figure out what Kirkman is going to do with the next one.

If your debating about picking this volume up let me help you with your decision. CLICK THE BUY BUTTON!!!!! YOU WONT REGRET IT!!!!!!

This trade paperback is just great. It's paced very well and the big shockers of the book are only revealed when you turn the page which makes the impact that much better.

I'd recommend reading the previous volumes first but this book is a must read for zombie fans.

I've been reading Walking Dead for some time now; it introduced me to Kirkman's work with Invincible and a friend of mine loaned me Marvel Zombies and the Ash crossover which were both entertaining.

However, this book ended my interest in the series. I will not read another Walking Dead comic or pick up another trade. I simply don't care anymore.

Many reviews mention that prominent characters die, that bad guys come back, etc.

The work is gory (it's a zombie comic, I wasn't expecting Little Lulu) and says a lot about humanity (as much as I'd love to think that EVERY human would band together in a situation like this, I doubt that will happen because some people ALWAYS want power).

However, The Walking Dead had settled in somewhat as a comic about how life can continue when everything falls apart - while there's no reason to think that life wouldn't be filled with conflict, struggle and drama, ESPECIALLY in that world, we had grown to know these characters, care about them, etc. They had found some semblance of safety.

And Kirkman blew it all up. While not doing anything would have basically turned the comic into a serial / soap opera about who was sleepig with who and who ate more than their share of tomatoes, Kirkman destroyed their sanctuary, killed off roughly half the characters and turned the rest loose into the wilderness.

All of which is fine and dandy, but killing off characters that I had come to care about in the context of the comic turning the rest loose doesn't mean I have to follow. While almost all of the reviews of this book on Amazon are glowing, I don't know anyone who was reading Walking Dead who kept reading it after this volume came out, and I also know people who were reading who - after being warned - stopped before this volume. The standard warning given out at the local comic shop lets people know that it's a bloody, savage, unpleasant end for most of the people and that new mothers ESPECIALLY might want to avoid it.

Honestly, I wish I was one of the people who had avoided it, but I picked it up about two days after it was released and that warning wasn't being given out then.

I'm not arguing that this collection is not worth reading because of gore or morals or anything of the sort - I'm simply saying that if you enjoyed this series, if you enjoyed the characters, that many of them die in brutal, horrifying ways and your reason for reading this series will be significantly reduced, if not eliminated. Take that for what it's worth.

Kirkman manages to push it just a little further in this set. The victims becoming more numerous by the page. The Calm Before was aptly named as this book is a storm of devastating proportions. But, reading it, I feel that Kirkman is winding the series down or maybe trying to pass the story along to not be as 'Rick-centric'.

I cannot wait for volume 9 to see where the new developments take us.

Another 5 star effort from Kirkman, Adlard, & Rathburn. This series continues to entertain and shock. Just when you think the surprises are done another awaits a page later. It's hard to write comments about this series without venturing into spoilers (I won't) so suffice to say this is hands down the best comic series in a looooong time and is a must read for any fan of character driven stories, especially if you like them splattered with a healthy dose of horror.

OMG, I can't believe how far this series has gone. Just can't get enough. If you haven't read a single issue then you are in for a treat because you don't have to wait 6 months for each book to come out. you can buy all 8 Trades and save yourself 4 years of waiting!

Most of the reviews have pretty much summed up how great this addition is to the rest of the series, but I would like to add that Showtime or HBO need to option this for a new series, already. Every two trades could be a full season. You'd already have 4 Seasons of materials to work with

I started reading the Walking Dead comic when it was already up to issue #20, so I started buying the Trades to read the stories easier. Man, Since then I've loaned this book around my office and I have about 8 people waiting for the book to get passed around. So now I buy 2, because I always have another person to introduce the series to.

The previous volume of the modern-soon-to-be-classic zombie comic was entitled "The Calm Before the Storm," and the title was pretty fitting - it was much less action oriented and the main characters actually had a chance to breathe - even given an opportunity to settle into what could become their daily routine in the post-apocalyptic world that Kirkman has created.

They should have know that wasn't going to last long!

The calm breaks with a resounding crash in "Made To Suffer," with tanks, explosions, zombie bites and a death toll seldom seen among major characters in comic series. This one packs a wallop - nobody is safe and nobody gets out of this volume unscathed.

While violence is rampant, it doesn't have quite the grotesque nature of some of the previous volumes with their torture scenes. Even amongst the havoc, some bright hope for the future is given, although much of that is rapidly taken away in the climactic battle scene. I won't get into details to avoid spoiling a great story, but there are parts of the last few pages that rip the reader's heart out.

While not for young readers, anyone mature enough to handle an R-rated movie (and who enjoys zombies/horror) would be well advised to check this series out from the beginning. It continues to pick up steam and I look forward to the next volume.

This title keeps getting better and better. Robert Kirkman wants to shake up the story a bit here and bring it in a different direction. I am looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Made to Suffer,
and suffer you shall.
More characters die in this one volume than all the previous volumes combined!!!
So many that your heart and your stomach will take-up permaneant residence in your throat!!
By the concluson, I GUARANTEE you will shed tears like a cumulonimbus!!!
This volume has ensured that this series is in fact the greatest zombie story ever told!!
Better than World War Z?!?!?!
YES!!!
Better than Night of the Living Dead!?!?!?!
YES!!! It's better than anything Romero has ever touched!!!
Here's why:
Neither a feature-length movie,
nor any given novel (IMHO) has the time to develop it's characters like an ongoing comic does.
And that's the most important aspect of horror, is it not??
the attachment to it's characters soon to become fodder.
And this series has created characters you WILL love
& you WILL dearly miss when they meet their inevitable, gorey demise.

If you are a zombie fanatic and you don't own this series yet,
your status in now under evaluation.
Do I have your attention yet!?!?!

This volume has almost nothing to do with the undead.
But it has everything to do with the living.
Last we saw Rick and company,
the Governor was at the prison gates,
......with a tank.
This volume depicts the pandemonium that ensues.
The battle for the prison.
And man I gotta tell ya....it is obscenely psychotic.
The insanity never lets up for even a page.
Halfway through I nearly hyperventialted!!!
This is the most intense volume of the series,
This is the volume that changes everything,
and with it we the reader, as well as Rick and company,
are made to suffer through the artocities of man.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Even in a world of blood-thirsty zombies...
Man is still the greatest monster of all.

For zombie story splatter-fans who may have felt that this book was getting a little plot-heavy and lacking in the gore department, this volume provides all the blood, guts and exploding heads you could ever want. It's not the slow-moving zombies who are doing all the killing, though: this time it's all about human-on-human violence, as a militaristic rival band of survivors -- led by their pure-evil, super-sadistic Governor -- descend on our hero Rick and his band of refugees. All the character development that author Robert Kirkman has invested in the series pays off in horrific emotional dividends, as one hero after another falls prey to the madness of war. Indeed, you'll be busier trying to figure out who *didn't* get killed than the other way around.

This is a harsh storyline, cruel, unrelenting, unapologetically tragic -- and genuinely gross. Indeed, there are at least three grueling sequences that literally made me nauseous while reading them. If you want some real, hardcore horror, Kirkman really delivers on this one. And, boy, I can't wait to see what happens next! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

First the series as whole is one of the greatest looks not only at what happens during a zombie apocalypse, but what happens after as people try to pick up their lives. It is very character driven and really the zombies are just a supporting role, Kirkman's macguffin. So really just go get the first one if you have not already.

On to this installment, spoilers below for previous installments, but not for this one.

When we last left our heroes they were back in the unsure safety of their prison. They had survived, barely, their last brush with the governor. Now the governor returns with a vengance, having barely survived his brush with the bad a**, sword wielding Michonne.

What can I say, if you thought the volume 7: the calm before was a little slow, this is your payoff. I don't know how this volume could have suprised me more. I don't know what I will do until the next one comes out. Maybe I will have to start getting the comics as they come out faster than the combined volumes. Everything you thought you knew about the rules of horror stories is thrown out the window. Good becomes bad, bad becomes good and no one is safe.

First this series really seemed a morality tale of how a good cop like Rick could turn into someone who would do evil to protect his family. Now morality is thrown out the window. Everything is about survival.

I've been a huge fan of the series - and while obviously a zombie series is going to be a gore-fest, this one left me almost taken aback. It feels like every panel contains a brutal, often unexpected murder. It created a dichotomy of feelings for me - on the one hand, I was rivetted by what was unfolding. On the other hand, I found myself thinking "did they really just show that?" and "did that just happen?" and definitely felt a bit uncomfortable about some of it.

And yet obviously it did something right because I *can't wait* to read the next one, but it almost felt like a giant RESET button was pressed. Let's just say, nothing was sacred here - anyone was fair game.

I will say that I look forward to the "biters" becoming the main danger/focus again after all these struggles with the other surviving camp.

I've been following "The Walking Dead" since the first trade paperback. I'm so devoted to this series that I bought a newly released collection while on vacation in Sweden a couple years ago because I couldn't wait to catch up. I wasn't sure what direction Mr. Kirkman would take after the last collection's apocalyptic final page, but he has certainly gone to the dark side with this volume. That man has *no* mercy. Wow.

In a flashback we see The Governor, body horribly maimed by Michonne but hateful soul intact, marshalling his forces against Rick's enclave using blatant lies and force of will. He's sunk even deeper into the depths of moral sickness and banal evil. Suffice to say that he's more twisted now than ever, especially given the depths he's sunk to in his relationship with the little girl zombie he keeps leashed up at home. Between her and his "entertainment system," we see that he's more comfortable relating with the undead than with the living.

After we return to his assault on the prison, things get even nastier. No quarter is asked, and none given. Familiar characters are brutally murdered, badly wounded, spiritually broken, or flee for their lives. What makes this volume so devastating is that many longtime players are lost or forever damaged, even some that have been around since day one. And of course, the undead feast on anyone unlucky enough to get in their way (talk about survival of the fittest). As with most zombie stories, the undead aren't really the villains. Indeed, the living are more gruesome and do the most heinous deeds by far.

In the end, we have yet another of Mr. Kirkman's trademark cliffhangers, one that tops all the previous ones in its horror and desolation. I don't know what Mr. Kirkman snorts while writing these stories, but it must be some hardcore stuff. Absolutely recommended - but not for kids or the faint of heart.

Most of the folks here already know that The Walking Dead saga is a compilation of stories by Robert Kirkman that expand on the story that is well know to any zombie movie fan....The main story. The one started in earnest by George Romero in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead [and was later remade in 1990 (the version that I prefer) by Tom Savini (with Romero oversight)].

The Walking Dead Volume 8 continues the story of former Normal-World Police Officer Rick Grimes and those that he comes in contact with in a New World...a world that has been over-run by zombies.

I'd agree with you if you thought that maybe The Walking Dead, Vol. 7: The Calm Before took a major pause in the epic series to focus less on zombies and more on what happens to society, its morals, laws and standards when government is lost and the planet becomes mostly uninhabitable.

You'll probably recall that previous volumes in the series showed how venturing out of the confines and security provided by the characters' home (established in Volume 3) are less than safe. The new zombie-infested world is dangerous not only because of the hordes of undead, but outside the gates await unfathomable chaos and horror in the pockets of societies of other survivors (see Volumes 5 and 6)....Especially in Volume 6 where survivors in desperate situations do the unthinkable to stay alive (or entertained).

By the end of Volume 6 we thought that one of the major threats to the primary group of survivors that the series follows had been removed. But what fan of the series can forget the cliffhanger of a last page from Volume 7? Volume 7 was appropriately named "The Calm Before", because Volume 8 is indeed a storm. Volume 8 picks up right from the shocker of a final Volume 7 page and relentlessly presents a war...not between the undead and man...but between two societies of the living in a world gone mad.

There's real, heartfelt emotion in The Walking Dead series combined with believable scenarios. I was never a big comic book guy prior to this series. Now I'm singing a different tune. This comic book series blows the doors off of a lot DVDs that I've wasted time with, and it's introduced me to a whole new entertainment media.

Anyway, the volume releases of The Walking Dead are like reading a screenplay with storyboards of a version of Night of the Living Dead that began simultaneously, but in a different part of the country (much like George Romero's late 2007 release, Diary of the Dead). Yes, The Walking Dead is kind of a rip-off of a story (stories) already told, but the key is that it's done very very well. The zombies are true to the original Romero creation: slow and stupid as opposed to the fast and thinking "infected" in (28 Weeks Later / 28 Days Later) or the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Each Walking Dead volume only takes about an hour to get all the way through, and they leave you wanting more. And they seem to keep coming; I think that issues 49 - 55 will likely comprise Volume 9 (with issue 55 due in Sept '08), so unfortunately, as of this writing, only #49 - #53 are published. The wait begins.

Volumes 1 - 8 are all available individually. A hard cover combination of Volumes 1 & 2 is out (The Walking Dead Book 1, a hard cover combination of Volumes 3 & 4 is out (The Walking Dead, Book 2), and Volumes 5 & 6 are now combined in Hardcover (The Walking Dead Book 3).

Anyone in need of a very well done zombie fix that you don't put into your DVD player should absolutely get down with The Walking Dead sickness. Add it to your cart, but be sure to start with Volume 1 and read them chronologically.

I can believe how much this comic affects me. I won't give anything away, but there is a 'shocker' at the end of this collection, that had me up all night. I have a daughter a little older than Judith, and it really 'got' me. Every volume is a page turner, sometimes they stress me out so much I want to quit reading them, but then I can't wait for the next one. Now if only Robert Kirkmam could eliminate the production delays....

Most of the folks here already know that The Walking Dead saga is a compilation of stories by Robert Kirkman that expand on the story that is well know to any zombie movie fan....The main story. The one started in earnest by George Romero in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead [and was later remade in 1990 (the version that I prefer) by Tom Savini (with Romero oversight)].

The Walking Dead Volume 8 continues the story of former Normal-World Police Officer Rick Grimes and those that he comes in contact with in a New World...a world that has been over-run by zombies.

I'd agree with you if you thought that maybe The Walking Dead, Vol. 7: The Calm Before took a major pause in the epic series to focus less on zombies and more on what happens to society, its morals, laws and standards when government is lost and the planet becomes mostly uninhabitable.

You'll probably recall that previous volumes in the series showed how venturing out of the confines and security provided by the characters' home (established in Volume 3) are less than safe. The new zombie-infested world is dangerous not only because of the hordes of undead, but outside the gates await unfathomable chaos and horror in the pockets of societies of other survivors (see Volumes 5 and 6)....Especially in Volume 6 where survivors in desperate situations do the unthinkable to stay alive (or entertained).

By the end of Volume 6 we thought that one of the major threats to the primary group of survivors that the series follows had been removed. But what fan of the series can forget the cliffhanger of a last page from Volume 7? Volume 7 was appropriately named "The Calm Before", because Volume 8 is indeed a storm. Volume 8 picks up right from the shocker of a final Volume 7 page and relentlessly presents a war...not between the undead and man...but between two societies of the living in a world gone mad.

There's real, heartfelt emotion in The Walking Dead series combined with believable scenarios. I was never a big comic book guy prior to this series. Now I'm singing a different tune. This comic book series blows the doors off of a lot DVDs that I've wasted time with, and it's introduced me to a whole new entertainment media.

Anyway, the volume releases of The Walking Dead are like reading a screenplay with storyboards of a version of Night of the Living Dead that began simultaneously, but in a different part of the country (much like George Romero's late 2007 release, Diary of the Dead). Yes, The Walking Dead is kind of a rip-off of a story (stories) already told, but the key is that it's done very very well. The zombies are true to the original Romero creation: slow and stupid as opposed to the fast and thinking "infected" in (28 Weeks Later / 28 Days Later) or the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Each Walking Dead volume only takes about an hour to get all the way through, and they leave you wanting more. And they seem to keep coming; issues 49 - 54 will likely comprise Volume 9, but unfortunately, as of this writing, only #49 & #50 are published. So the wait begins.

Volumes 1 - 8 are all available individually. A hard cover combination of Volumes 1 & 2 is out (The Walking Dead Book 1, a hard cover combination of Volumes 3 & 4 is out (The Walking Dead, Book 2), and Volumes 5 & 6 are now combined in Hardcover (The Walking Dead Book 3).

Anyone in need of a very well done zombie fix that you don't put into your DVD player should absolutely get down with The Walking Dead sickness. Add it to your cart, but be sure to start with Volume 1 and read them chronologically.

It's crazy to think that after 8 volumes of this amazing series, it still finds new ways to surprise me. And believe me, this volume is the most surprising by far! I simply can't wait for Volume 9. It can't come soon enough.

Robert Kirkman continues to amaze with this saga. This Volume is by far the most brutal, gut wrenching, and in a lot of ways, most satisfying of the lot. There are no punches pulled here and no one is safe when the Governor comes riding up to the prison gates where Rick and company have lived in relative safety for quite a long time.
We expected this and it has finally come. I do not like giving away details or spoilers but I think no one should be surprised that things change dramatically and quite permanently for all the characters.
I can't help but believe that from what I have seen with this story that this is arguably one of the best, if not the best zombie story ever written or filmed. That it is not over (and I have no idea when if ever Kirkman plans on bringing things to a close) only adds to my fascination with it.

I have had the image of the Governor rolling up in his tank since I finished #7 back in December. Now that I have finally read the book, I can tell you it was all worth it. I won't ruin it for anyone, but this was the best one yet.