Although the zombies were popular throughout the 2000s and 2010s, they were considered widely played when the comic book Robert Kirkman launched “The Walking Dead”. It was in the early 2000s and the “28 days later” revolutionaries had not even been released in the United States. Thus, when Kirkman approached the image of the comic publishing company with an idea of a series of black and white zombies, he hesitated.
“When I launched” The Walking Dead “in the image, Jim Valentino and Eric Stephenson directed the company, and they both estimated that” The Walking Dead “as a right zombie book had not enough hook,” said Kirkman in an interview with IGN 2007. It may seem silly with hindsight, but the field of the elevator for “The Walking Dead” is Indeed basic: it is a standard story on a group of survivors in a zombie apocalypse, the main thing distinguishing its longevity. “The Walking Dead” prosperous because it allows its characters to evolve slowly over the years, but this feature does not immediately stand out in the first issue of comics.
Kirkman’s solution to this problem was to do some of what he called “a kind of fibing” with the publishers. He told them that “The Walking Dead” would not just be a story of zombies, but a zombie story against extraterrestrials. As he explained:
“I had made a few books with them, so I felt likely to do it – I mainly lied to them and I said:” Well, look, that’s how it will be: the whole book will be when I launched it, but as the problems progress, I will finally reveal that it was in fact extraterrestrials. The military forces of humans, and finally it will be this great extraterrestrial invasion. And so they said: “Oh yeah, it looks soft!” And so they approved the book according to this. “”
Kirkman does not feel too bad to compose the zombies of Walking Dead vs Aliens
The publishers did not take long to realize that Kirkman had lied to them, but at that time, they no longer cared about it. Kirkman recalled that publisher Eric Stephenson had finished reading the first issue after his release; He said he loved it, but he had not noticed any clue that the extraterrestrials were responsible for the epidemic. Kirkman remembered when Stephenson had said: “Oh well, I must be honest with you … This thing is not going to happen. I was a little doing a little, and I really want to make a right zombie book.”
“And at this point, the book was quite well received and there was a lot of buzz on this subject,” continued Kirkman. “So, Eric wrote something like:” Well, that’s good, because I read the book thinking: “Hey, he could ruin this by putting extraterrestrials.” “”
Kirkman noted that the other publisher who had approved it, Jim Valentino, “was not too delighted” to discover the deception. Kirkman said he felt a little guilty about this story to journalists because Valentino had been so positive behind his work on “Invincible”, another series of longtime comics from Kirkman who started shortly before “The Walking Dead” and has since appreciated his own popular television adaptation. Valentino is someone Kirkman had (and a) a lot of respect.
“I feel bad to tell this story because, as I said, it does a bad service,” admitted Kirkman.
He also pointed out that people seem to like to hear this anecdote, probably for the same reasons that people like to know how the first book “Harry Potter” was rejected by 12 publishers. This helps to give the author a fun assistance story, and it contributes to the comforting idea that people who reject us do not know what they are talking about. But as Kirkman said, publishers’ concerns about “The Walking Dead” were reasonable. Throwing extraterrestrials in the mixture would have been terrible, we all agree today, but in the early 2000s, it was not at all obvious.
