Will ‘The Walking Dead’ Get Ahead Of The Comics?

Robert Kirkman’s long running The Walking Dead comic book has released 172 issues since its debut issue in 2003, serving as the basis for AMC’s hit live-action series heading into its eighth season October 22. The season 8 premiere, which will be the series’ 100th episode, is still quite a ways behind the comics: the show is around issue 115, which kicked off the “All Out War” arc in volume 20 of the comic book. ComicBook.com asked showrunner Scott Gimple if he sees the show outpacing the source material the way Game of Thrones passed the books:

“You know, I don’t. Only because I know there is some of that fortifying material coming up, as well,” Gimple said. “And there’s so many characters after issue 127 that are intriguing, that I think can really sing. On TV, I think it’s required to even look into those characters a little bit more. TV is very, very much about character. Comics is plot and character sort of fighting it out. I don’t know. There’s so many characters I want to dig into in the book. I think we’ll keep our pace. We’re more than forty issues before, fifty I think.”

Gimple has stayed closer to the comics than past showrunners — particularly his predecessor, Glen Mazzara, who famously drew ire from fans and cast members alike for his fast and loose approach to the source material — making The Walking Dead mostly an accurate adaptation with major events going down more or less how they occurred in the books.

Situations or characters can be switched around, like Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) taking out Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) before Glenn (Steven Yeun) or Michonne (Danai Gurira) becoming Rick’s lover instead of Andrea (played in the show by Laurie Holden), but Gimple has maintained an almost strict adaptation from page to screen. Even with his adherence to the books, Gimple says he’s more focused on the immediate future than getting ahead of Robert Kirkman‘s outline.

“We might jump back and grab some things we didn’t grab,” Gimple said. “Sometimes we’ve inadvertently grabbed — because I don’t want to know everything that’s happened — there’s been some times that have been kind of cool where we’ve done stuff almost at the same time as the book. Which, before we shoot, it’s like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s very close. We’ll take a little of that right now, and do something else in the future.’ I don’t know. I’m not that worried about it. I’m much more worried about just what’s in front of me.”

The Walking Dead returns to AMC with the premiere of its 100th episode Sunday, October 22.