1. They were not dead, thus not zombies.
2. They ran.. thus not zombies
3. They were infected with a virus, not bitten, died then reanimated, thus not zombies.

Seriously, learn your movies.

Man gets drunk in the hills, passes out, awakens 20 years later to find that the American Revolution is over, the world is changed, his friends are dead, and so on.

The Day of the Triffids (novel)
Publication date: December 1951

Bill is working on Triffids, bioengineered plants that move around, are able to kill people, and feed on carcasses. He is temporarily blinded. While in hospital, a meteor shower permanently blinds the majority of the world (all who watch it). After unbandaging his eyes, he wanders through a largely sightless London, watching civilization collapsing around him.

Night of the Living Dead (film)
Release date: October 1, 1968

Slow zombies rise from the dead and begin eating the living. Civilians do their best to survive the attacks. Rednecks, law enforcement, and the military abuse their power, becoming a threat to civilians.

Resident Evil (film)
Release date: March 12, 2002 (LA)

Alice awakens at the Raccoon City Hospital locked in an observation room… After escaping the room and wandering the hospital’s empty halls, Alice exits the building to find Raccoon City abandoned with signs of chaos everywhere; a newspaper clip shows that the T-Virus has spread to the surface, creating an army of zombies.

28 Days Later (film)
Release date: November 1, 2002 (UK)

Jim awakens from a coma in a deserted hospital. As he leaves, he discovers London abandoned and rife with signs of catastrophe. Jim is soon discovered and chased through the streets by infected people before being rescued by two survivors… they reveal that while Jim was comatose from his accident, a virus spread uncontrollably among the populace, turning most people into rabid, psychotic “Infected,” resulting in societal collapse that possibly spread worldwide.

The military abuse their power, becoming a threat to civilians.

At the end of the film, Jim is rushed to an empty hospital where Selena somehow saves him from a gunshot wound despite no surgical training (she had some schooling as a chemist). Jim again wakes up in a changed world, but this time in a cottage amid a now cozy catastrophe, rather than grim apocalypse.

The Walking Dead (comic book series)
Publication date: October 2003

In the beginning of the series, Rick is in a firefight, is shot, and enters a coma. Upon waking in a hospital, he discovers the slow moving undead are in the building and town. Rick returns home and decides to go to Atlanta to try to find other survivors, especially his wife and son.

TV Tropes: Abandoned Hospital
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AbandonedHospital

TV Tropes: Convenient Coma
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvenientComa

And, for those of you on the “28 Days Later was so original, The Walking Dead is a rip-off” tear, I submit this, a catalogue of tropes used in 28 Days Later:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitleteza1ple?from=Main.TwentyEightDaysLater

The facts sort of speak for themselves, but for internet purposes I’ll spell it out:

Nothing in fiction is “original.” Everything is a modification of other things. Every writer of fiction makes something slightly different out of the materials they have available.

It is the quality of their reassemblage that matters, not whether they did or did not use this or that previously used trope, plot device, character type, or what have you. Some of the most “original” stuff being made is the nearly unwatchable avant-garde material put out by film students – but even they are mostly doing things others have done before.

The Last Supper by DaVinci was not the first or last painting of that iconic scene, nor was it the first or last painting to use the colors red and blue. But that really could not matter less.

For example, George Romero’s influential ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was itself influenced mainly (according to the director) by (a) EC zombie comics (which were influenced by previous films and stories that in turn derived from Haitian lore, which in turn was influenced by West African animism and Catholicism and slavery, which were all the results of… everything back to the dawn of time), (b) I Am Legend, the novel by Richard Matheson and its first film adaptation (in turn influenced by European vampire legends, apocalyptic themes, etc.), and (c) the political and social turmoil in 1960′s USA (in turn influenced by ’50′s politics, literature, culture, etc).

If you want something original, you are going to have to find an extraterrestrial, sentient, culture-producing species. But then you’ll probably see one of their films (or whatever medium they favor), and say, “This is such a rip off of ‘Alien.’ There are aliens in it.”

I look forward to seeing this TV version of the comic series. It may be good or bad, but that won’t be because George Romero already did slow zombies, or because someone already awoke to find a changed world elsewhere in the history of stories, or because a cop has been the protagonist in other TV shows. It will depend on the skill and effort of everyone involved to do something interesting with common elements.

Already, a fan made a really sweet opening title sequence out of the original comic art:
http://www.kuriositas.com/2010/09/walking-dead-opening-titles.html

If AMC does worse than that with a bunch of pros, despite their experience making quality stories like Breaking Bad, they have only themselves to blame. And, to belabor the point, it will have nothing to do with where the main character first wakes up after the zombie apocalypse.

I was really impressed by the pacing of the TV show, lots more added to the spine of the narrative from the comic. Great dialogue and fleshing out of scenes, in keeping with the feel of the original. Reckon it may be too dark to be a real hit, but I enjoyed the lack of compromise. Can’t wait for further episodes.

I recommend everyone to watch The Walking Dead when it airs on TV!

If you know anything about the movie industry, the script for 28 days later was written years before 2002. Then you have pre-pro and then production and then post-production before it was released into theatre.

So it would not surprise me if the script was optioned back in 1999 considering how much time it takes to get to production.

Does a comic book have that much production time? No. Think before you type.

And to #42: Boyle already said 28 days later was an homage to day of the triffids.