A review by psylencing
The Walking Dead: Compendium 3, by Robert Kirkman

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

TW: SA, rape

In my reviews of the previous 2 compendiums, my biggest issues were the use of sexual crimes against women and children as entertainment. While rape and sexual assault would definitely occur in a world like the one described in the comics, it’s presented in a very detailed way that leaves nothing to the imagination. This turned a serious and awful crime into a cheap from of entertainment and gratification for (primarily) male readers. 

I’ve discussed in my previous reviews how what happens off-screen is usually more meaningful and disturbing. At first, I believed Kirkman simply didn’t know that creating and publishing images of women and children being sexually assaulted (without any disclaimer or warning at the beginning of the comics) was harmful and disrespectful to the reader. It was 2003, social norms didn’t yet include the mindfulness they have today. 

However, I found out that many female fans of the series wrote letters to Kirkman, telling him that the gratuitous illustrations of women and children being assaulted were cheap and took away from the story rather than added to it. Kirkman’s response was that the women who get assaulted are written that way to show they’re “strong.” Rape doesn’t make women strong, rapists don’t benefit their victims, and sexual assault is not a character development tool. Reducing a heinous crime to the catalyst of a character trait glorifies rapists in a way I thought we were long past as a culture, but I guess I was wrong. 

I also learned that Kirkman’s artist was fine drawing scenes of women being raped, but initially refused to draw a scene where a rapist is raped by one of his victims. The deplorability of that is beyond me. He was fine with drawing a woman being raped, but drew the line in the sand at drawing a rapist being raped. I could go on about what that might indicate about this artist, but I won’t for the sake of brevity. 

It’s pretty awful that Kirkman and his team were aware of how these scenes were impacting their readers, yet still included one in book 3, long after the complaints had come to his attention. Kirkman writes a line for Negan where he essentially says he’s done a lot of awful things, but he would never rape. That, to me, seemed like an apology. 

However, later on, a woman is nearly raped by one of Negan’s followers. The assault is stopped only when Negan rushes in and kills the attacker. Great, right? Nope. Negan later kills the victim as well. This scene is presented in the most horrific way, with a gratuitous illustration of the victim, her large, perky breasts hanging out in all of their glory, shielded only by a lacy bra (apparently uncomfortable but appealing lingerie would have been a priority to this character, who is fighting every day to survive, but makes the conscious effort to remain sexy), her legs splayed out in front of her porno-thumbnail style, with her hands bound behind her back. Our victim was turned into an object of male desire, then presented to us. 

This is so amazingly disgusting to me, that it’s the focal point of my entire review. I refuse to point out any good things about the story when Kirkman was asked to stop doing this, but continued to do so anyway, as some sort of macho ‘fuck you’ to his readers. 

Kirkman believes women benefit from rape, that they look sexy when they’re being raped, that photos of them being raped are entertaining, and that children being raped command the same sort of treatment. For that reason, I am extremely glad I didn’t pay a cent for these books (thanks to my friend who let me borrow them). I am disgusted that this hasn’t been talked about before, because it’s massive disservice to the current and would-be fans of this franchise.