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Good point. I stopped reading the Walking Dead early on, because it just didn't click with me. I love depressing stories ( as demonstrated by my own work, and by my recent obsession with Metal Gear Solid ), but that's either in the context of a story having a sad ENDING, or a story having ups and downs but enough ups to give some sense of hope. With the Walking Dead, everyone's doomed and is just going to get more and more miserable as they approach the end, so where's the surprise?
As I noted, I haven't read the comic so I can't speak in regards to that, but I do enjoy some post-apocalyptic stuff enough despite the bleak setting to see how an audience would want to revisit it.
"Mad Max" was a hit for its hard action and grindhouse sensibilities. Whether it's the gang-member having his hand torn off by the mother's car or Mel Gibson beating Rorschach to the "give the evil, hand-cuffed villian a hacksaw and a suggestion before he burns alive" bit, it has enough filmmaking "oomph" to understand why it spawned a series. However, the world it paints is a dreary one... Gibson's family exist solely to be vulnerable and preyed upon. Society no longer seems to exist at all, just the highway patrol, rare and far spread harmless civilians and bloodthirsty motorcycle gangs. The whole idea of this movie seems to be to drop the loving family unit into this horror to see them torn to shreads.
The sequel "The Road Warrior", however, re-envisioned the world. People weren't scattered far and wide... there was a central civilization to the conflict. And while the people there might be hardened, they were not predators turning on each other... the danger was coming from outside. It was a straightforward heroic adventure film and its popularity exploded in comparison to the nihilistic "Mad Max".
It's also worth noting that in the second film the villains had no way to hurt the hero other than physically. He had lost everything he cared about in the original film and all that was left was pure action hero. They couldn't torture his family or torment him with worry any longer. He was an avatar that the audience could comfortably use to enter this world, protected by an aura of bad-ass... As such, the miseries of the world were kept at bay somewhat. We could sympathize with the other people who still suffered and root for the hero to help them, but we weren't forced to be in their shoes. I think that makes a huge difference in how palatable an incredibly bleak world might be.
Seeing a story through the eyes of a victim is draining experience, despite (or directly because of) whatever depth it offers. However, seeing the exact same set up through the eyes of Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name who just arrived in town, and the audience tends to say "Hell yes... More please!"
I'm sure there's plenty of room for balance between the two... it'll be interesting to see if the television version of The Walking Dead (which they admit will deviate from the comic as it goes on in order to keep both fresh) will be able to find it.
