‘s Tenth Anniversary panel started with a slideshow that gave fans a look at the upcoming All-Out War storyline, but the computer wasn’t exactly helpful about it. “We always fake technical difficulties,” joked series creator Robert Kirkman.”We’re going to be doing some stuff for the tenth anniversary because you have to do thing to celebrate anniversaries in comics because it’s cool,” said Kirkman, saying that the upcoming story is “a huge storyline that’s a culmination of everything that’s happened in the book so far.” He then went on to joke about Rick dying, only to immediately put a cap on his own joke to be sure there wouldn’t be any rumors flying online.”Negan and the saviors have been causing a lot of trouble,” he told the audience, saying that this arc is something he’s always planned, and that it has a lot to do with the way society might start to rebuild from the ashes of the zombie apocalypse. “We’ve seen the Hilltop and this new area the Kingdom aligning with Rick and his group of survivors. Now they’re going to try to take Negan down, but that’s going to be extremely difficult.”In order to get the twelve issues out in seven months, Kirkman says, they’ll be bringing Stefano Gaudiano on to ink over Charlie Adlard’s pencilsDuring the Q&A session, Kirkman confirmed that Glenn’s death last year is “definitely something that’s going to be on everyone’s mind. There’s a lot of stuff coming up with Maggie and how she’s dealing with it. While he’s no longer in the book, his presence will very much be felt and it’s kind of where we’re going right now.”Asked whether Rick’s death could be a plot development coming, either in the All-Out War or at some other time in the future, Kirkman seemed to acknowledge the possibility.”No one is safe in the book,” he said. “I think the book could survive Rick. I think there are enough strong characters in the book that we could follow any one of them as a focus. It could happen. It might happen soon.”Asked about the graphic at top, Kirkman said, “It’s a teaser! You’re supposed to be like, ‘What is this?’ We’ll be announcing that at the [Skybound] panel. The announcement will be online.”
