The Walking Dead has been able to pull some of its best and scariest moments of the first six seasons straight out of the comics. In fact, aside from cutting out some F-bombs here and there, a few of the most pivotal sequences of the entire show to date have been ripped from the source material. As it happens, however, we may be in for one massive departure from page to screen in the not-too-distant future. Comic scribe Robert Kirkman had this to say about what will likely separate these two versions of the zombie apocalypse:
I know how I want to end The Walking Dead so I can't tell anyone because I don't want it on the show before I get it in my comic! So, if the show were to end ever, at any point and the comic was still going, I would have to sit down with Scott [Gimple] and pretend I have no idea how to end it and come up with another ending.
Robert Kirkman's reveal that he doesn't intend to give away the end of the comic series to showrunner Scott Gimple makes sense considering some of his earlier statements. Kirkman had harsh words for George R.R. Martin and his decision to outline future A Song of Ice and Fire book plots for the Game of Thrones producers now that the show has caught up with the novels. Kirkman later softened his stance and praised Martin for his writing, but he stuck with the point that he would have handled the situation differently.
Luckily for those of us who have been fearing a Game of Thrones scenario with The Walking Dead, Kirkman is pretty confident that his show won't be catching up with his comics any time soon. The show took six seasons to make it to the 100th issue of the comics. With 159 issues of The Walking Dead currently available, the AMC series still has a lot of ground to cover before it will have to start going its own way entirely.
Still, it's not impossible that the show will catch up to the source material. Viewers have seen episodes go in wildly different directions than what they may have read, and some of the biggest characters still alive on the show are either dead in the comics or never existed in the comics. If seasons continue to pick and choose which plot points to pull from the page, we may see the pace quicken. Kirkman's assurance to ComicBook.com that he doesn't plan on letting the show reveal his comic ending means that we may end up with two stellar but very separate versions of the zombie apocalypse.
The Walking Dead returns to AMC on Sunday, October 23 at 9 p.m. ET. Check out our breakdown of what we know so far about Season 7 for a peek ahead, and don't forget to take a look at our fall TV premiere schedule.
