Whether or not The Walking Dead turns into a 50-year franchise like Star Trek, the AMC series will inevitably either conclude before, or extend beyond Robert Kirkman’s comic source material. Whenever we get to that point, Kirkman at least confirms the two mediums will craft different endings, so as not to spoil one another.

Kirkman stated as much in an interview with Kevin Smith for Geeking Out, asserting that his main priority has been, and will always be to the Image comic started in 2003. Presuming AMC’s main Walking Dead series comes to an end before the comic, Kirkman refuses to go all Game of Thrones by allowing any portion of his ending to be spoiled early (via UPROXX):

I know how I want to end The Walking Dead, the book. But I can’t tell anyone, because I don’t want it on the show before I get it in the comic. So if the show were to ever end, ever, at any point, and the comic was still going, I would have to sit down with Scott [Gimple] and pretend that I have no idea how to end it and work with him to try and come up with a new ending.

Our Game of Thrones analogy is deliberate, as Kirkman’s quote above is in line with his prior thoughts against George R.R. Martin allowing HBO to present certain literary twists early:

I would never do that. That’s the one thing I’m disappointed in George R.R. Martin for doing. He should have just been like, Fuck you. You make it up now, I’ll get to mine when I’m ready.

Martin would later apologize for using the word “disappointed,” but whenever The Walking Dead calls it quits, will the TV finale invariably have an inferior ending to the comic?

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