The Walking Dead's 100th Issue Cover Revealed

Series lead Rick Grimes stands atop a road paved with bodies in what's almost surely a deeply [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Series lead Rick Grimes stands atop a road paved with bodies in what's almost surely a deeply metaphorical cover for The Walking Dead #100, out in July from Image Comics. USA Today has the exlcusive preview of the image, which went live this morning along with comments from series writer Robert Kirkman. "The whole goal is to have the comic and the show exist separately so that one doesn't spoil the other," said Kirkman of AMC's television adaptation of his work. The cover art depicts a number of dead characters who aren't dead--some not even yet introduced--in the TV series, so it's likely that the comment was made in anticipation of complaints from the TV audience, who appeared in the comments thread almost immediately to decry the story's lack of a spoiler warning. The TV show, though, has already killed off cast members who live on in the comic, or radically altered the timelines of events and deaths, so comic book spoilers have little bearing, if any, on the future of the TV show. There don't appear to be any spoilers in the image for those who are up-to-date on their comics reading, though; while one woman in the foreground resembles Andrea, who currently stars in the series, it's likely that it's merely her sister, long since gone, who is conspicuous on the cover (along with Tyreese) because she still has loved ones among the principal cast who are coping with her loss. Like his Image Comics cohort Erik Larsen, who is nearing 200 issues with his creator-owned book Savage Dragon, there's no end in sight for Kirkman on The Walking Dead. "I really do want to do this for decades," he told USA Today. "I'm thrilled that it still feels like I have a full tank of gas."

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