I gave up with the comics after the 'All Out War' arc. It was just endlessly dragged out. Then the time jump happened, which was a great opportunity to mix things up and make it fresh, but it was still dull as.
It's really obvious that Robert Kirkman loves Negan and wants him to be the main character. But as Negan is a) an awful human being and b) Glenn's killer, it just can't stick. In the comics Negan is so OTT now, it's like a parody.
Yeah, Negan was kind of interesting at first, but he's become boring. Great. He curses, and he's not just Chaotic Stupid in his alignment. So what? That doesn't make him particularly interesting. He should be dead by now, or he should've had his character really change. Or there should be a point to keeping him around, other than giving Kirkman the opportunity to have a guy who swears every 3rd word.
I think the real problem with both the comics and the show is that the characters have always been kind of one note, and don't really seem to grow. They just kind of...are. Stuff happens to them, and life goes on. They don't really change a ton, so much as their surroundings and circumstances change. The plotlines tend to be self-contained, too, so there isn't a lot of opportunity for that to be dynamic over the long haul. So, really, all you're left with is the world itself changing around the characters, and them occasionally getting killed off in gruesome or abrupt fashion.
This translated into the show, too, and I think it really hurt the show. The actors are all terrific, but the writing has been uneven and hasn't given them a chance to really demonstrate character growth.
Look, I love me some zombie apocalypse tales. I don't need it to be highbrow, either. A little social satire, some blood 'n' guts, and I'm good to go. But TWD positioned itself to be something different, something better, and something that treated its setting as merely the backdrop for a more serious take on "How would regular people really respond?" That started off as really, really interesting. And then they got caught up with gimmick moves, dragging out storylines, and apparently not letting the characters progress that much. They accumulate experiences, but I don't get the sense that they've changed a ton.
