The inevitable New York Comic Con blitz around The Walking Deadgot off to a raucous start on Thursday afternoon.
Robert Kirkman, the comic's writer/creator, and editor Sean Mackiewicz sat down for an hour-plus chat with moderator Jason Mantzoukas (The League's Rafi). A cheering crowd greeted the trio as they delved deeply into Walking Deadlore, all while cracking wise and playfully trolling fans.
Read on for a rundown of the highlights and trivia tidbits from their talk and the extended Q&A session that followed.
Credit: Image ComicsThe comic's villainous Negan finally surfaced in AMC's The Walking DeadTV series at the end of Season 6. Jeffrey Dean Morgan looked and sounded the part -- especially with Lucille in hand -- except for one notable exception: there were no F-bombs.
Comic book Negan has ... let's call it a colorfulgrasp of the English language. His use of profanity, and the F-bomb in particular, is practically elevated to poetry on the page. AMC's series is bound by broadcast standards, but an alternate, profanity-laced Negan introduction was shot for the Blu-ray.
That plan will continue on in Season 7.
"It's honestly a choice between having Negan once an episode go [muffled 'f*ck'] or saving it for the Blu-ray. And we feel like doing the one thing would be kind of lame," Kirkman said.
"We're gonna be doing that for various scenes through the season, where we'll be doing things two different ways. So you'll get a little extra F-bombs on the Blu-ray. So it'll be fun."
Credit: Image ComicsPoor Glenn.
The fan-favorite survivor had his head bashed in by Lucille when Rick and his crew met Negan for the first time. It's the climactic moment of the comic's 100th issue, and to this day remains one of the series' most upsetting displays of pure evil.
By the time Kirkman got around to planning issue #100, he knew who Negan's symbolic first victim would be: "It was always supposed to be Glenn," he said.
But Kirkman also admitted that Glenn wasn't supposed to make it that far.
"[He] was actually supposed to die earlier in the comic and I changed my mind," Kirkman said.
"He was going to die in a different way that I can't remember now. There was even an issue where the cover was drawn to reflect that he would be dying and I ended up changing the story to match the cover."
Credit: Image ComicsNegan is now a fixture in the comics. He's survived a civil war, a lengthy prison sentence and a brief period of sleeping with the enemy, all on top of navigating the dangers of a post-apocalyptic zombie world. But that wasn't always meant to be the case.
"Negan was supposed to die at the end of the 'Something to Fear' arc [in the comics]," Kirkman said.
"He was originally supposed to be in the book for like four or five issues. And then when I wrote issue #100, I was like, 'I love this guy too much."
Although Negan's earlier death would have robbed The Walking Deadfans of some gripping stories, he would at least have gotten a memorable send-off.
"[Negan's death] was supposed to end when Maggie takes over the Hilltop," Kirkman said. "Rick -- I think it was Rick? -- was going to deliver Negan's head in a box to Maggie, to say, 'I'm sorry.'"
Credit: Image ComicsThere's a memorable moment during the 'All Out War' arc involving Negan and Eugene. The freshly captured Eugene quivers on the ground in his cell while Negan rubs his groin and gives his captive a reading from his "crystal balls."
As it turns out, that scene was originally meant to be much more graphic. This alternate version was scripted and at least partially drawn by artist Charlie Adlard.
"There's one point where Negan talks to Eugene and he's got this whole monologue about crystal balls. He's like, 'I've got these crystal balls," Mackiewicz said.
"And in the script, he actually takes his f*cking balls out and starts rubbing them in front of Eugene."
While the scene was eventually toned down -- "That's a bridge too f*cking far," Mackiewicz said -- the editor wanted to keep it.
"I was all for that," he said. "It makes sense. There's not enough nutsack in comics."
Credit: Image ComicsIt's possible Kirkman has addressed this elsewhere, but he provided a great summation of how his original concept for the series came from George A. Romero, the creator of the Living Deadseries of movies and a key architect of modern zombie fiction.
"I was watching Romero movies," Kirkman said, "and I was like, 'These shouldn't end. What if these just never ended?"
"Two movies in a row end with guys getting into helicopters and flying off to parts unknown. And I was just like, 'Man, I want to see the movie where those two helicopters land on an island and then people get out and they're like, 'I was in a mall. I was in a bunker in Florida. Now we're here on this island together."
TopicsComicsThe Walking Dead
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