The Walking Dead vs. Lost

I'm a late convert to the TV series LOST, and just watching the 12th episode last night where Claire is taken by Ethan and Charlie nearly dies. It was excellent TV and expertly written. Then this morning I was thinking of Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof's introduction to the latest collection of Robert Kirkman's comic book series Invincible.

"LOST is a comic book... Or like one... Here's two things I learned from reading a gazillion comic books:

Thing One: I like lots and lots and lots of characters. I get bored easily, so the Justice League is infinitely more compelling then just Superman alone. The X-Men rock harder then Wolverine's solo albums...and even the Midnighter can't hold my interest for too long if you strip away The Authority.

Thing Two: I like my stories complicated and sprawling. I want surprises. I want to be rewarded for being a loyal reader... like I'm part of a secret society. I don't want to be spoon-fed. I want to think. I want to be part of a universe where anything can happen... and often does. And I like RISK.

Robert Kirkman has mastered Thing One and Thing Two."

Damon's absolutely right, but the series that actually illustrates this the best is his other creator owned series The Walking Dead. While LOST chickens out and lets Charlie live, The Walking Dead regularly kills off major members of it's sprawling cast. Kirkman has written that no one is safe in this series, not even the main protagonist, Rick. And I believe it. Rick just recently lost a hand to a sadistic survivalist-warlord. I don't feel the same sense of danger for LOST's Jack. In TV, star actors are usually hired for entire seasons and are rarely let go mid-season. But for comics, any character can be written out at any time, all of them just lines on paper. And that's big part of why comics can take bigger risks. Of course, in mainstream super-hero comics like Superman and Spiderman, no one can stay dead for long, but outside of the icons, character can die and stay dead. And in creator-owned project anything goes. No matter, how big a TV show runner is, they don't have that kind of freedom. So while LOST is very well done and I'm may be surprised by latter episodes, it seams clear that The Walking Dead "rocks harder" to use Damon's parlance, just because it takes a lot more risks and really ANYTHING can happen. The structure of TV just doesn't offer those possibilities, no matter how quirky and off-beat a series is.

UPDATE:

Okay, I'm wrong. Lost does take some major risks and will kill off main characters. The writers are doing it right, and writing along the lines of some of the best comics.