“The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman appeared at New York Comic-Con on Thursday to discuss the hit AMC series, new companion show “Fear the Walking Dead” and the comic series that inspired the franchise.
“This is going to be the most intense season of ‘The Walking Dead’ yet,” Kirkman said of season six, which premiered on Oct. 11. “The first few episodes hit the ground running, and there’ll be pretty big cliffhangers at the end of every episode.”
When asked whether we’ll see other settlements aside from Alexandria this season, Kirkman scoffed, “I can’t answer that, but good try. Would anyone like to see the other communities introduced?” At an enthusiastic roar from the crowd, he nodded. “Alright, we’ll do it.”
He was also cagey about the potential of seeing Negan in season 6: “I think it’d be cool for Negan to be introduced into the show, I don’t know when that’ll happen. I mean, I do, but I can’t tell you.”
Morgan (Lennie James) will play an integral part in the upcoming season, and Kirkman admitted, “The character of Morgan does come back in the comic book series too, so it was always the plan, and then Lennie James just kept working … it took a while to get him back.”
The season will also be a big one for Lauren Cohan’s Maggie, according to the producer: “Maggie’s character is evolving like all the others; she’s become very assertive, she’s someone Deanna is working with very closely. She’s certainly bridging the gap between the Alexandrians and Rick’s group. There’s a lot of cool stuff with Maggie coming.”
“TWD” companion series “Fear the Walking Dead” ended with our characters contemplating taking to the ocean to escape the zombie outbreak, and Kirkman promised that there would be plenty of water-zombie action in season two, but cautioned that we shouldn’t expect the whole season to be set at sea.
“Just because it’s taking place on the boat, doesn’t mean they’ll stay on the boat … there’s lots of reasons to get off the boat or get onto a different boat,” he pointed out. Much like “TWD,” he said, “it’s a journey, it’ll be about these people trying to find a safe haven,” but finding that such a place may not exist on land or water.
For Kirkman, the appeal of the spinoff was a chance to right some wrongs from “TWD,” including how quickly our survivors adjusted to killing zombies — especially characters like pizza boy Glenn (Steven Yeun). “We get to show how hesitant a real person would be and how hard it would be to kill these monsters,” Kirkman said. “It was a lot of fun just playing with expectations and how alien this world would be and how hard it would be to adjust.”
When asked whether we might see more companion shows set on other continents like Europe or Asia, Kirkman demurred, “If I did [know of plans for that], I certainly couldn’t say that here,” he teased. “But the success of ‘Fear’ shows that there’s certainly some appetite for that.”
