Kirkman Reflects on the the Surprise Ending of The Walking Dead Comic at SDCC
Since debuting in 2003, The Walking Dead has bucked the tropes of zombie movies and reveled in reveals. This was always the mission for writer Robert Kirkman, who, since childhood, wondered what happened to the people who flew into the horizon at the end of Dawn of the Dead. What happened next? The question fueled an open-ended saga that captivated readers and became the least likely mega-rating franchise on television.
On the page, the turns kept coming until the very end. Kirkman surprised the industry and fans by ending the comic this month, with The Walking Dead #193.
“Personally ... I hate knowing what’s coming,” Kirkman wrote in a letter printed in the final issue. “As a fan, I hate it when I realize I’m in the third act of a movie and the story is winding down. I hate that I can count commercial breaks and know I’m nearing the end of a TV show. I hate that you can feel when you’re getting to the end of a book, or a graphic novel [...] The Walking Dead has always been built on surprise. Not knowing what’s going to happen when you turn the page, who’s going to die, how they’re going to die ... it’s been essential to the success of this series. It’s been the lifeblood that’s been keeping it going all these years, keeping people engaged. It just felt wrong and against the very nature of this series not to make the actual end as surprising as all the big deaths ... from Shane all the way to Rick.”
Kirkman appeared at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 with a number of projects, old and new, to talk up. An Invincible animated series for Amazon — a show Kirkman described at the panel as an adult, hour-long drama — is in the works and locking in a cast. His latest success, Oblivion Song, is starting to blossom in the pages of the books. As always, Kirkman said, he’s cooking up hush-hush projects we’ll likely only find out about when they happen.
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