Negan Will Change The Walking Dead In A Drastic And Scary Way According To Robert Kirkman

Following tonight’s mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, which featured the show’s first mention of the comic’s most infamous villain, Negan, in its prologue, Robert Kirkman joined Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick to talk about the ruthless character during the recap show.

“It was a big entrance,” Kirkman said of Negan’s issue #100 introduction in his Skybound comic. “For me, the 100th issue of a comic series is an excellent jumping off point.” This is why Kirkman elected to introduce the sociopathic menace when he did.

“Negan really was just this thing, this catalyst thrown into the mix to show, ‘No, there’s still a lot going on in The Walking Dead. There’s still new things to be discovered,’” Kirkman explained. “The fact that we’re getting to this point in the show now that this catalyst is going to be thrown in, at some point in the future (I can’t say which episode but clearly he’s been cast so you guys know he’s coming up), that’s going to just fundamentally change everything that we’re doing in a really interesting, drastic, and scary way.”

The Walking Dead returns February 14, 2016 on AMC.