Gaming & Culture Q&A: 'The Walking Dead' with Frank Darabont and Robert Kirkman by Michelle Castillo | October 28, 2010 | + Tweet. As our countdown to "The Walking Dead" this Sunday continues, we bring you exclusive interviews from the creators of the show. We spoke with executive producer and showrunner Frank Darabont, who has developed the show as well as written the first two episodes, and comic creator Robert Kirkman during a press conference panel. It may seem strange to have a zombie show on TV, but Darabont and Kirkman assure us that this is the best and only way to remain true to the material, that the show has a dramatic feel, that it resembles AMC's "Breaking Bad" or "Mad Men," but it has zombies in it.
Was there anything specific you took to Frank Darabont? Not under these circumstances. My take on the main task here is that there really is a purpose behind what Robert has done here, which is to tell these stories in the most unflinching and adult character-driven way possible, which sort of draws us into it. That makes us a really good match for AMC because they like storytelling. But it's certainly not a sellout to AMC; it's really out of respect and reverence for the material we're adapting. The material is so good it allows us to tell those kinds of stories, and yes, to get really nasty at times, which is really fantastic because, yeah, we don't hold back. If I did this as a feature film, I wouldn't do these effects, these moments, as I would do now.
Robert Kirkman: Have you yourself said Greg Nicotero that this was for TV-FD:? No, apparently not (more on Techland: Robert Kirkman Talks 'Walking Dead' Weekly). You started getting into TV with the young Indy show. You have this broad canvas as an artist to tell a story, and then you've had success in movies, where you have a two-hour window. What's more encouraging for the art form-FD:? I wouldn't necessarily say one is better than the other. I have to tell you, it's very exciting to slide into this serial approach to telling a story. You're right; with a feature - hell, even though you've talked about it - you have two hours, in my case, two hours and change, to tell a story with a set of characters, so there's a finiteness to that. You have to get everything said within that span time. With this, we'll be talking about who these people are, as long as they let us continue doing these. I love the long-range thinking that goes into something like this (more on Techland: The Zombie Combat Manual: How to Kick Some Undead Ass).
So you're not locked down to the books FD:? Not slavishly. And that's one of the reasons I love Robert so much. When we first talked about it, I said I have every intention of staying on your storytelling path, but I will also veer off where and when, and where it makes sense to create a detour. ? You go off the beaten path because so many good ideas will come up, as we go along. Why not go veer from the path and explore this little area off to the side and come back onto the path? He was always very positive about that.
RK: How arrogant must one be to say, "FD will adapt my comic." In that way, Frank, can you not change anything? I don't want any of your ideas, they need to be included. Between Frank and the writers’ room, there are a lot of really talented people involved in this show, and there are a lot of good ideas that come up when discussing what they should do with this. There are a lot of new characters added, which I think are incredible, that I believe people will come to love, and they all have their own stories, so what you end up with is the comic series, which serves as a good blueprint. Well, that's okay: I think it's a good comic book.
FD:? It's a very good comic book.
RK: But when you make a TV show, you get to add all these pieces and expand it into something that's greater than it started out to be. The TV show is kind of the comic series expanded out into the best possible version of the comic series (more on Techland: The Zombie Crawl: 'The Walking Dead' Steven Yeun is Glenn).
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