The Walking Dead (2003)

After years of television and a string of spin-offs, the comic is the version with a shape. Robert Kirkman ran it for 193 issues, with Charlie Adlard drawing most of them in stark black and white, and ended it without warning: Image even solicited fake issues 194 and 195 so the finale would land as a surprise. Characters who live or die on television often meet a different fate on the page, so even devoted viewers will not know what is coming. The compendium editions are the cheapest way through.