The Walking Dead, Vol. 19

Rick Grimes has lived under Negan's thumb long enough. The Saviors take tribute from his community, and tension between the two camps is close to snapping. Rick decides to fight, but he cannot do it openly.

Working quietly alongside Jesus, he approaches the Hilltop and the Kingdom and persuades them to join him. The aim is a coalition large enough to stand up to Negan, assembled without Negan ever learning of it.

The volume collects issues #109 to #114 of Robert Kirkman's ongoing zombie horror series, with art by Charlie Adlard and gray tones by Cliff Rathburn. The first half builds slowly, with plenty of talk and mounting dread. Violence breaks out in the second half.

That violence begins when Negan's men arrive to collect their tribute, with no idea that a war is being gathered against them. Alliances are tested, and the price of survival becomes plain. Rick, Ezekiel, Gregory and Negan each have to decide how far they will go to protect their people.

This is the prelude to the storyline "All Out War", and it ends with that conflict about to begin.