;)
Image Courtesy of PlayboyCheck this out!!
In the April edition of Playboy (on newsstands March 16th), there will be an exclusive 6 page Walking Dead story featuring the origin of Michonne!
Story by Robert Kirkman and art by Charlie Adlard.
Hit the jump for the full press release.
PLAYBOY EXCLUSIVELY REVEALS ORIGINS OF THE WALKING DEAD COMIC CHARACTER IN MAGAZINE’S APRIL ISSUE
Playboy and Robert Kirkman, writer of both the comic and TV show The Walking Dead, have teamed up to exclusively introduce the origins of comic book fan favorite Michonne, in the April issue of Playboy (on newsstands and on i.Playboy.com Friday, March 16). Illustrated by Charlie Adlard, artist for Skybound/Image’s The Walking Dead, the story features brilliant art to accompany the never-before-seen mystery that explores how the iconic and sexy Michonne discovered her impressive skills as a master swordswoman and became the most admired and beloved survivor.
“It’s an honor to be a part of a historic publication like Playboy,” said Kirkman, “I’m thrilled to share The Walking Dead with the magazine’s readers, especially such an important story like the origin of Michonne.”
The Walking Dead television show is basic cable’s highest-rated original drama of all time. The season two finale airs Sunday, March 18 at 9:00 PM ET on AMC. The character of Michonne is the most highly anticipated addition to the series in the future.
“I pitched The Walking Dead as the zombie movie that never ends, the sequel to virtually every zombie movie ever made, because I never liked the endings,” Kirkman explained. “I always wondered, ‘What do those people do next?’ I wanted to see them foraging for food, building a house and keeping their children safe. Basically, I came up with a survival drama about what happens to people in an extreme situation. A good survival story is applicable to practically anything. It could be a natural disaster or a nuclear war. It just so happens that in this case, it’s a world overrun by zombies.”
Robert Kirkman’s success and passionate advocacy for creator-owned comics led him to become the first person invited to become a partner at Image Comics since the company’s inception twenty years ago. Kirkman has earned the respect of the comic, writing and television communities and topped the New York Times bestseller list for graphic novels in 2011, taking four of the top spots. www.Skybound.com is the destination for all news and merchandise for Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead and all Skybound titles.
I'm not sure about this one. Now for the most part modern comics target older readers, 18-35 I suspect. The problem is you still have younger readers and younger fans of the show andcomics. So doing a cross over in a pornography magazine is absolute nonsense. I'm not anything close to a Holy Roller but I don't buy or keep pornography in my home either. So as a long time WD fan, I find this move offensive. I have both WD 19 (1st Michonne) and original WD artwork that includes Michonne/Zombie pages. Why on earth would I want to hang a Smut magazine next to that? Robert Kirkman needs to focus on his creation instead of the Benjermins.
Bummed about this decision.
Alf, without the benjamins there is no creation. And a move like this exposes The Walking Dead to a lot of potential new readers.
Gotta agree with Alf and WhiskeyT, this not only completely out of left field, it seems very gimmicky and is vaguely disappointing…
seems like the perfect excuse I need to buy Playboy. Quit your whining ladies. If you don't want to buy Playboy, don't buy Playboy. Potentially TWD could get hundreds of thousands new readers from this exposure (pun intended)
I love Kirkman and The Walking Dead. I've been with him since the beginning and I buy all his books. I've got every single issue of The Walking Dead (I still remember buying that first issue in the store when it first came out and no one knew who Kirkman was). BUT… I can't help but feel that this is a big fuck you to the loyal readers of his comic. I agree that this is probably a good move for Kirkman and will probably bring in new readers, but such an important piece of the story should not be excluded from the monthly comic. I have faith in Kirkman though… I've got to believe that he will eventually publish this story as an extra in the monthly comic.
The other readers have a point. I have no problem reading a comic that portrays murder, violence, rape, a suspension of habeas corpus, torture, pre-teens being decapitated, corporal amputation, incestual necrophilia or a mother and newborn being ripped to shreds by gunfire. But to associate that comic with a magazine that has consenting of-age women expose their bare chests? That, sirs, is a step toward immoral indecency that will crumble the moral fiber of anyone reading your books.
By the way, everything above should be read using the most sarcastic inner voice possible (preferably Dan Castellaneta's, if you can afford the royalties). The other commentators need to both grow up and grow a pair. The world has moved on from your brand of prissy ignorance. Playboy has featured original works from such writers as Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, and Roald Dahl (yes, the childrens' book author, who published more in Playboy than he ever wrote for kids). Instead of bitching and pretending you have 1950's values, try congratulating Mr. Kirkman for being chosen to join an honored group.
And while you're doing that, meditate upon this: where is this hypothetical kid, who reads 'The Walking Dead' but doesn't know girls have naked parts and doesn't have internet access to an infinite number of images worse than Playboy's? They don't exist. So get off your soapbox and be happy that one of your favorite comics is being featured in a magazine that will increase readership and ensure that it will stay in publication. And if you feel inclined to make another speech on this issue, do what you normally do and address it to your cats rather than pester us with it.
So i'm a lady that needs to grow up and grow a pair because I don't like this move? My problem isn't with Playboy necessarily. My problem is that in order to read a presumably important part of an ongoing story I have kept up with for almost 100 issues I am being asked to buy a magazine I don't normally buy. Doesnt matter that it is Playboy. It could be "People", "Good Housekeeping" or "Davey the Internet Troll Monthly". Either way it seems like a bad deal for me the regular monthly reader.
If they are being loose with the definition of "exclusive" I'm more comfortable with it. If the point is to expose new readers to WD why make it a new exclusive story instead of something available to regular readers i a different way?
@WhiskeyT…if my comments were directed at people who complained of the morality of Playboy and you didn't make any comments of that sort, why would you get all huffy? You have my permission to neither grow up nor grow a pair.
But in regards to your concerns, cross-publication promotional stories have been a standard in the comics industry since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were doing Fantastic Four together. I remember Spider-Man shopping at Sangar Harris, Superman appearing in World Magazine, and the X-Men at the Texas State Fair…not to mention thousands of newspaper strips or fast food tie-in comics, all which required an additional purchase to get the bonus content.
So if you have to miss the Michonne extra (which you know will pop up somewhere else eventually), be comforted in the fact that the comic will be introduced to Playboy's 1.5 million readers. If you've followed The Walking Dead for 100 issues, then you'd probably like to see it go another hundred – new readers are essential for this…unless Robert Kirkman and his associates are the comic-creating slave labor we've all been pining for. My point was that we should celebrate that the comic is popular enough to warrant appearing in one of the highest circulated, most respected magazines in American publishing, and I was admonishing those who dismiss it as "porno."
Bottom line – whether you like looking at boobies or not, this move will help ensure that there are years of Rick and the gang to come. (But not you, Carl…after getting shot like nine or ten times, one of the bullets is bound to kill you…or give you tetanus…or attract a group of walkers who rip you apart…or startle the cow who kicks the lantern that starts the fire that burns you and Chicago to cinders…or mysteriously imbue you with the Phoenix force so that you can retire and go live in a white hot room in Arizona somewhere…or something…how is that kid alive, anyway?)
I love Rick in the Walking Dead!! He is so awesome for killing Shane and then that walker apocalypse dawned on them so they ran away and they couldn't run to the house cause then the walkers would follow them and they would be surrounded and wouldn't be able to get away. I am just really happy that Lori, Carl, and Rick got away that way Lori can have her baby and not have to worry about being killed anymore cause if she got killed then the baby would die and they would become walkers and the baby would be born a walker and then the would keep having more babies and there would be more and MORE walkers and that would suck cause then the people who survived would become out numbered.
-Dark Woods Production-
Everybody needs to respect Rick.!!!! ( Rick killed the most walkers, killed his best friend, he killed the 2 guys in the bar he is such a bad ass!!!!)
Besides the fact that Playboy is lame ( Im not offended by it at all, its just kinda boring and fake), this is a really shitty decision. Ive really respected Robert up until this, but now not as much. It sucks for the fans, especially the ones that have been reading the individual issues for the length of the series. Reading letters columns where Robert said that the series would be self contained. No spin-offs, origin stories, etc. Really let down that people who really care about reading the complete story have to plunk down $7 for 6 pages of comic. Lame.
I'm totally cool with this move. Im sure that this will be available in some other form than playboy, eventually. Hell, its probably already posted on the internet somewhere for free. I just hope it gets LOTS more people to read the comic so we have TWD foreva!!!! Its the best thing that has happened to this nerd since Star Trek 😉
So you take your strong female character and put her origin story into a magazine that only values women as sex objects? That fucking bites, Kirkman.
I am a married man that reads Walking Dead. I don't want to buy a Playboy to be able to have another part of WD. It's a stupid move. I definitely will be looking for this online outside of Playboy. I'm not going to buy a Playboy and irritate/offend my wife just so I can read Walking Dead.
I happily downloaded issue 97 last night and devoured it all in too short a time.. only to by slapped in the letters pages with the news about Michonne's 6 page Playboy story. And I have to say that Robert's response to someone writing in with their concerns was incredibly flippant and arrogant, and read as a huge f**k you to all Walking Dead's female readers.
One of the many reasons that I love the Walking Dead are the strong female characters that fight, love, protect and survive without having to justify their existence by exposing their tits and ass. Stories with strong, complex women who aren't sexually objectified are actually really quite rare in our society saturated with one dimensional images of the sexy kitten-girl.
Justifying this bitch-slap to your smart, feminist readership with a 'hey if I got one more reader it's worth it' doesn't cut it at all. Playboy gets it's oxygen from the idea that women are nothing more than cute playthings, and it perpetuates a damaging stereotype that women like Michonne would have had to fight against daily, in a pre-turned world. I can imagine Michonne being like 'Bitch please, why don't you just put my story in a white supremacist magazine and be done with it, because you know, one new reader would be worth it!"
What a let down.
I think this is stupid move,I have no problem with Playboy,go jack off to it all you want,Im not gonna get into it because God forbid someone express a opinion that is different from you(if you are someone like Davey),but its a stupid move.