Reading Walking Dead before watching it

[Ctgt]

Honestly I wouldn't worry too much Alex. There are things that happen fairly early in the comic series(issue 6) that don't happen until much later in the TV series and happen in a different way. The TV series is different enough that I have stopped comparing the two. Read, watch and enjoy as similar but different.

[Beth]

I see the two as parallel worlds. There are people that exist in one but not the other. Events in the tv show are increasingly different from the comics as the show goes on.

[Dara]

Echoing what the previous two posters said, the show has deviated so far from the comic that events in the comic might not be on the show. The first compendium is the first 48 issues (I think) which goes up through the prison stay and Govenor storyline.

[Aildiin]

Compendium 1 roughly covers the first 3 seasons of the show.
The main difference is that several key events have different outcomes in the comic and in the show and the cast of living characters at the end is vastly different...

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

As others have said they are different enough that they can be enjoyed separately.
There are major characters in the TV show that have never appeared in the comic.

The comic is darker and goes to places that I doubt we will see on TV.
Though they have gone further than I thought they would.

Enjoy both.

[Fiona]

I watched the first and second season before I read the comics. I'm already reading the Prison and Govenor storylines and haven't watched the new season yet.
I don't think it makes much difference. I enjoy both comic and series, because they are so different from eachother.

[Rik]

Like others said, I wouldn't worry to much. The TV show uses some very broad strokes from the comics but they have diverged so much at this point that I really have no idea whats going to happen. Characters are dead in the show that are still alive in the comics after 109 issues while there are characters who died early in the comic but are still alive on the show. Those that have died in the show and the comic died in much different ways at different times. And one of the main characters in the show doesn't even exist in the comic. Really there truly is only one huge spoiler from the comic that will kind of ruin a climax in the show but it happens so much later in the show than the comic that your still suprised when it finally does happen because you've decided maybe they are skipping it.

Not to mention as someone else said the comic does a lot of things they would never dare do on the TV show without the show moving to premium cable where they can get away with even darker themes. For instance, there is a very brutal and repeated rape in the comic that does not happen at all in the show. They also have to soften up some other scenes like one that happened in the season 3 finale that I believe alluded to a similar type scene in the comic but only its far softer. For those who saw the show but don't read the comic here goes in spoiler . . . (view spoiler)[ In the show Carl kills that Woodbury kid because it needed to be done in his mind. In the comic there is a scene after the prison where a small kid in Rick's group kills another kid because he at his young age, about 5, thinks his friend will come back normal. Rick and the other adults don't know what to do with the kid so Carl goes and kills him since no one else will. Carl's journey in the comic is pretty dark and ruthless and it will be interesting to see how far they take it in the show. (hide spoiler)]

[Fresno Bob]

yep, two totally different things.....and I like the comic much much better, I'm still haunted by something I read in Vol 18 a month ago, one of the grimmest things I've ever seen portrayed...