The Walking Dead #3
The Walking Dead #3 is the single densest character-introduction issue of the entire 193-issue run: in one story, Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore deliver the first appearances of Dale, Carol, Amy, Donna, Allen, Sophia, Jim, and the twins Ben and Billy — virtually the complete roster of the Atlanta survivor camp that would anchor the series through its first major arc. Because so many characters who later drove the AMC television adaptation (Carol, Dale, Andrea's companion group) debut here, the issue sits at the center of the comic-to-screen lineage that turned a mid-tier Image title into one of the defining pop-culture franchises of the 2010s. The issue also plants the seeds of the Rick-Shane-Lori triangle that becomes the series' first explosive dramatic engine, and it formalizes the 'brain-destruction' rule for killing walkers as something Rick's group must consciously learn — a foundational piece of the series' world-building logic.
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Written by Robert Kirkman and fully drawn (pencils, inks, and cover art) by Tony Moore, issue #3 was published by Image Comics on December 10, 2003, as the third chapter of Volume 1: Days Gone Bye — just two months after the debut issue launched the series in October 2003. Kirkman had famously secured Image's approval for the series by falsely pitching it as a setup for an alien-invasion story, since Image was skeptical of a straight zombie survival comic; by issue #3, with the alien hook quietly abandoned, the book was already establishing itself on pure character-driven survival drama. Moore handled all interior art on issues #1–6 and continued to provide cover art through issue #24, making this issue part of the foundational Tony Moore artistic era that collectors and historians treat as a distinct creative chapter of the run.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published December 10, 2003 by Image Comics; written by Robert Kirkman, with full art (pencils, inks) and cover by Tony Moore.
- First appearance of Dale (the RV owner and moral backbone of the Atlanta camp), Carol (and her daughter Sophia), Amy (and her sister Andrea, though Andrea's precise debut issue is disputed between #2 and #3 across sources), and Donna — the largest single-issue character introduction in the series.
- First appearance of Allen, Donna's husband, and the twin boys Ben and Billy, who later figure in one of the series' most disturbing moral-horror storylines.
- Rick is formally reunited with Shane and introduced to the full Atlanta survivor camp; Dale warns Rick that Shane harbors feelings for Lori — establishing the jealousy subplot that drives the arc's climax.
- The issue contains the in-story revelation that a walker's head must have its brain destroyed to be permanently killed — a core rule of the series' zombie mythology, demonstrated when Dale decapitates a walker that continues to move.
- The cover art recycles a colored version of the image from The Walking Dead Pilot, a pre-series preview pamphlet released earlier in 2003.
- The original black-and-white issue was reprinted in full color as The Walking Dead Deluxe #3 (November 18, 2020), colored by Dave McCaig as part of the complete twice-monthly Deluxe reprint program announced by Kirkman at Skybound Xpo in July 2020.
- The Grand Comics Database records additional international reprints, including a French-language edition in the Semic S.A. Walking Dead #1 (2005) and a Bulgarian-language edition from Artline Studios (2017).
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Walking Dead #1 (2004), Walking Dead #1 (2005), The Walking Dead #1 (2006), Walking Dead #1 (2007), The Walking Dead Compendium #1 (2009), The Walking Dead en Español #1 (2013), Живите мъртви #3 (2017), The Walking Dead Deluxe #3 (2020), The Walking Dead Deluxe #3 (2020), The Walking Dead Deluxe #5 (2020)
Key issues in The Walking Dead
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