The Walking Dead will not pull a Game of Thrones and pass the source material

Fans have begun to fear The Walking Dead might surpass its source material in much the same way Game of Thrones did. But fear not.

Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are often compared to one another, and while there are some similarities (sprawling casts, zombies, and a penchant for killing main characters) series creator Robert Kirkman believes there to be one key difference. And it’s not dragons or nudity.

Game of Thrones faced a well-chronicled problem recently as the show outpaced the source material on which it is based. the Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin. Martin is a notoriously slow writer, with the wait between books averaging around five years. And so, as The Walking Dead has begun to enter into some of the later material from the source graphic novels, fans have naturally begun to wonder, will The Walking Dead catch and eventually pass the comics?

According to Kirkman, that answer is: Not likely. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Kirkman was rather succinct in his assessment.

"If the show is gaining on the comic book, it’s at a very slow pace…"

Scott Gimple, who runs the series for AMC, expanded a bit.

"With some plans we have for the future, I don’t think so… I think it’s unlikely, but it depends where the book stops."

Image Credit: AMC

The comic time line is years ahead of its show counterpart at this point, with no end in sight. If that wasn’t enough, the show takes time to explore unseen aspects of the comics, increasing the gap even further according to Kirkman.

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"I don’t know if anyone sat down to do the math, but if the show is gaining on the comic book, it’s at a very slow pace… We’re expanding storylines so every now and then we zip through the comic book, and then we slow down for a while and add a bunch of stuff that’s not in the comics. There’s not any danger of that happening in any way."

That’s comforting, because who wants The Walking Dead to leave our TV screens? According to Kirkman, there might be at least one person not rooting for the show to continue in perpetuity.

Credit: AMC/Gene Page

"If we say season 20 too often around Andrew Lincoln, he will murder us, and then you won’t have to worry about anything!"

You make us sad Andrew Lincoln. You make us sad. The Walking Dead returns to AMC this October.