The Walking Dead Creator Uninterested in Adapting Fear or World Beyond in Comics

The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is uninterested in adapting material from live-action television spin-offs Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond in comic book form. Kirkman, who ended his black-and-white zombie comic book after 16 years and 193 issues in 2019, co-created Fear with original showrunner Dave Erickson and is executive producer of the World Beyond spin-off created by Scott Gimple and Matt Negrete. As Kirkman revisits his comic book in The Walking Dead Deluxe, reprinting the series in full color for the first time, the franchise creator says AMC shows Fear and World Beyond won’t find new life in the Walking Dead comic book universe:

“It doesn’t interest me, honestly,” Kirkman wrote in his “Letter Hacks” column ending The Walking Dead Deluxe #19. A fan letter asked if the comic creator would put a “new twist” on ideas or stories seen in past seasons of Fear and World Beyond.

Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment co-produces both series with AMC Networks’ AMC Studios. Kirkman previously revealed “legal issues” kept Daryl Dixon, created by former Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont and writers Charles H. Eglee Jack LoGiudice for the television show, out of the comic book series where there is no exact counterpart for the character played by Norman Reedus.

While Kirkman has no plans to bring show-exclusive characters into the comic book universe of Image Comics, the creator did confirm plans to reprint color versions of one-shots like the Michonne Special and Negan Lives.

“The plan is for everything to be fully colored eventually,” Kirkman wrote in response to another fan letter. “Everything!”

After ending The Walking Dead at issue #193 in 2019 and publishing the one-shot spin-off Negan Lives #1 in 2020, Kirkman revisits Walking Dead characters in the five-part serial Rick Grimes 2000 in the pages of the ongoing anthology series Skybound X. The story, which is not canon, follows Rick Grimes as a survivor of the alien invasion that caused the zombie apocalypse.

The Walking Dead Deluxe #19 and Skybound X #4 are now available to own.

The Final Season of The Walking Dead premieres August 15 on AMC+ and August 22 at 9/8c on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.