New Walking Dead Event Calls for Brawn and Brains

Gene Page/AMC It’s the time of the season for the zombies of “The Walking Dead.”

It takes a very special kind of person to not only appreciate a narrative about apocalypse-by-zombie but also to actually want to take part in that apocalypse. And soon there will be an event for those fans that lets them play a role in the simulated downfall of civilization or, if they wish, contribute to it.

On Wednesday the publishing imprint behind the popular undead comic-book series “The Walking Dead,” which spawned the hit AMC drama of the same title, said it would introduce a new live event, The Walking Dead: Escape, at Petco Park in San Diego this summer. (Fans of the last-place San Diego Padres, who play in the park, may argue that they’ve seen enough zombielike behavior there already.)

Organizers of The Walking Dead: Escape said in a news release that it was “unlike any obstacle course event” in the United States, allowing participants to play “a Survivor and race through the zombie infested evacuation zone; a Walker who becomes one of the undead, embracing the inevitable; or a Spectator who watches the apocalypse from sidelines at the Escape Party.” It is scheduled to take place from July 12 through 15, dates that neatly align with the annual Comic-Con International festival in San Diego as well as the release of the 100th issue of “The Walking Dead.”

Those who take part in the event as Survivors must “climb, crawl and slide in an effort to avoid confrontation by hordes of Walkers,” the release said, adding that it “is not a race, and Survivors are not timed, but the end is near, and they must move swiftly.”

Robert Kirkman, the “Walking Dead” comics writer and founder of the Skybound imprint of Image Comics, said in a statement, “We are literally transforming Petco Park into the early days of society’s collapse and San Diego is just the first city to fall.”

More information is available at thewalkingdeadescape.com and early registration is recommended, as Walkers are permitted but walk-ons probably won’t be.

Source & Image : New York Times