‘The Walking Dead’ 7: Does AMC or show producers influence the comic?
“The Walking Dead” is currently in the process of airing its seventh season, and no doubt it’s a tremendous achievement that we ever got to this point in the run. So few shows do, and with this one it’s all the most interesting because there is no clear end in sight. The same goes for the comic series, which serves as most of the inspiration for the episodes that we see on TV.
Given that the show has to at least be starting to think about how all of this is going to wind down, have they tried to facilitate discussions with comic creator Robert Kirkman on his story and how it’s going to end? Not exactly, especially in terms of offering up their own input. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Kirkman confirmed that they for the most part offer him up a chance to work really independently on what it is that he puts out into the universe:
“There’s no communication whatsoever [about the ending] … They have no approval over what happens in the comic. [Showrunner] Scott Gimple is an avid reader of the comic, so he gets the advance issues as they’re published, but he doesn’t read scripts. He gets mad at me if I give him any kind of indication as to what’s coming, because he doesn’t like spoilers.
“So, they’re kind of a hundred percent in the dark, which I guess is pretty remarkable, and I would probably say it’s a testament to the trust that AMC has in me. I mean, I guess to a certain extent, at this point, the comic book is kind of a workshop of future seasons of the show, and it’s fun to think that I can just completely torpedo the story if I wanted to.”
Personally, we wouldn’t be shocked if when the dust settles, we actually see an ending for the television series that is very different from the one that the comics, if for no other reason than that it’s likely that it will end first. The logistics of doing a show are far and away different, and maybe at the same time they feel like there’s a method to wrap things up here that works but wouldn’t in the comics. You invest in the characters in different ways.
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