The Walking Dead has been a global phenomenon, and with the release of
the latest collected volume What
Comes After, we have an interview to give you an insight into the
man himself.
You’ve recently surpassed 100 issues of The Walking Dead. This far
in, when you’re making the book, is it still the same as when you started? How
is making it different now, or is it?
Robert Kirkman: It’s funny, I try to make the book the same way, but
sometimes I think about how different I am, you know, I’ve been working on
this for 100 issues. When I started the book, I was living in a very bad part
of the town in Kentucky I lived in, I had just gotten married to my wife, we
had no children, I was very very very young, and now that I’m writing issue
100, we’re definitely in a different place in our lives, there is a TV show
and all this other nonsense going on, and I have a six year old son and a three
year old daughter, which is really blowing me away. The process is still the
same; I’m still at my laptop, by myself, banging out script, making sure that
Charlie [Adlard, The Walking Dead artist] has pages, and I’m committed to the
book. I love it almost more than I did in the early days, just because of the
uncertainty of being able to tell my story for as long as I want has to a
certain extent faded, so I actually can be, “Oh, I can do this now, and in
20 issues I can do this,” and I can actually build to things with much more
certainty. But it is kind of ridiculous to think about just how early in the
story I still feel like I am, like I’m at issue 100 and I really feel like
I just started, which sounds ridiculous but it’s really exciting
for me.
How are you able to keep it fresh, writing it for yourself, and not
just like, “Oh, another issue of Walking Dead”?
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