The Walking Dead: Negan Star Jeffrey Dean Morgan Supports Comic Shop With Signed Issues of Negan Lives

The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan on the television series inspired by creator Robert Kirkman’s comic book, is supporting his local comic book store with autographed issues of Negan Lives. The newly announced one-shot comic from Kirkman and artist Charlie Adlard will be sold exclusively at comic book stores starting July 1, with 100% of sales benefiting physical retailers who “made our series a success to begin with,” Kirkman said in a statement. One of those retailers: Megabrain Comics and Arcade in Rhinebeck, New York, which counts Morgan, wife Hilarie Burton Morgan, and their son, Gus, as regular customers.

On Thursday, Burton tweeted a request to her more than 178,000 followers, asking them to support small shops by purchasing an issue of Negan Lives #1 on July 1, her birthday. In response, Morgan tweeted an offer to sign the first 100 issues sold by the shop — bumping store owner Jean Michel’s orders from 80 to nearly 200 copies.

“We will probably cap it to around 200, but it also depends on him,” Michel told the Poughkeepsie Journal. “We don’t want to bury him with work.”

Pre-orders for the comic book, priced at $4.99, are now sold out on the Megabrain website. The store limited autographed copies to one per customer.

The shop has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and has received help from the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, which provides financial assistance for booksellers and their employees. The support from the Morgans has been “amazing,” Michel said. “I can’t begin to describe how much of a difference this makes.”

The Morgans were among the first customers to visit the shop when it opened in 2017 and “were just the sweetest family,” Michel said. “I helped their son find some comics. They came back a week later, and he was saying this was his favorite store.”

There are no plans for a digital version of Negan Lives #1, the first Walking Dead comic book to be published since the long-running comic book ended without warning after 193 issues in July 2019.

“While Charlie Adlard and I had laid the series to rest, this felt like something special we could do for the store owners who made our series a success to begin with. To that end, I’m happy to report that 100% of the revenue generated from this book will go to the stores selling it,” Kirkman said in a statement announcing the one-shot comic. “The retailer community does backbreaking work to get comics into the hands of our loving fans, we should all be doing more in these trying times to show them how appreciated they are.”

Negan Lives #1 reaches comic store shelves July 1.

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