Jim

Origin

Jim was a mechanic. The first person he saw bit was his boss who turned into a zombie after an hour. He later watches as his family is ripped apart as he escapes. His wife, sister, brother-in-law, kids, and maybe his mom were all torn into before any zombie could attack Jim. That is the only reason he was able to escape. Joining the camp just outside of Atlanta, Jim is quiet and keeps to himself.

Creation

Jim was written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Tony Moore.

Major Story Arcs

One afternoon, a zombie wanders into camp and almost bites Donna. Dale chops off its head and Jim watches as the zombie still lives. He then seems to casually watch as the zombie gets shot in the head. Due to this attack, Rick sees the importance of having more guns. Jim is able to point him to a gun store on the corner of Pleasant and 8th Street in Atlanta. After Rick and Glenn return with guns, Jim joins the group in target practice.

At a campfire, Rick gets everyone to tell their background stories. Jim, as always, is short on words and simply states that before the zombie outbreak he was a mechanic. A wandering group of zombies then attack the camp and Jim puts his marksmanship to work. In the fray, a zombie jumps on Jim. He gets pissed and reverses the zombie and starts bashing its head in with the butt of his gun while shouting that the zombie had killed his family. Shane has to pull Jim off and the group sees that Jim has been bitten on his arm.

Jim attends Amy’s funeral with a bandage on his arm and even offers a few words on the injustice of the attack. He, however, gets much worse. Coming down with a fever, Jim takes a bed in Dale’s camper. He proposes that the group leaves him. He hopes that his family will have come back from the dead and, if he turns into a zombie, that he can rejoin them. The group reluctantly does so. They leave him in the woods. It is not known whether he is ever reunited with his family.

Other Media

Television

In AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” Andrew Rothenberg plays Jim. His character is relatively the same in that his family was killed around him and he's relatively quiet. One stark difference is in the show he has nightmares that seem to foreshadow his being bitten and turned into a zombie. This happens when a herd of zombies attack the group and he gets bitten. The group leaves him on the roadside tied to a tree as he turns into a zombie.