Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic media franchise created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, originating as a comic book series published by Image Comics and Skybound Entertainment from October 2003 through July 2019. The franchise centers on survival in a world overrun by reanimated dead referred to as walkers, with the human threats between survivors consistently as dangerous as the walkers themselves. AMC’s television adaptation ran eleven seasons from 2010 to 2022, spawning a connected universe of spinoff series still in production, and Telltale Games’ episodic game series produced some of the most emotionally effective interactive storytelling of its era.

The Comics

Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore launched The Walking Dead comic in October 2003, with Charlie Adlard taking over art duties from issue seven onward and drawing the remaining 186 issues of the 193-issue run. The series followed Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy who wakes from a coma to find the world transformed, across a sprawling journey from Atlanta through the rural South, a prison, a walled community called Alexandria, and finally a time skip to a partially rebuilt civilization. Kirkman ended the series in July 2019 with no advance warning, publishing what appeared to be a regular issue before including a text page announcing the conclusion. The ending landed as a complete surprise to readers and the industry.

The Walking Dead Television Universe

The Walking Dead premiered on AMC on October 31, 2010, developed by Frank Darabont from Kirkman’s comics, with Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes. The show ran eleven seasons through November 2022 across 177 episodes, spending several years as the highest-rated show on cable television. The television universe expanded significantly through spinoffs. Fear the Walking Dead ran eight seasons from 2015 through November 2023, following a different family through the outbreak’s early days. The Walking Dead: World Beyond ran two seasons in 2020 and 2021 as a limited series. Tales of the Walking Dead was an anthology series in 2022.

Three character-focused spinoffs followed the main series’ conclusion. The Walking Dead: Dead City, set in a walker-overrun Manhattan, began in 2023 and follows Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Maggie, played by Lauren Cohan. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, beginning in 2023, follows Norman Reedus’s Daryl across France and has run into a third season. The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, a six-episode miniseries in early 2024, reunited Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira as Michonne to resolve the storyline of Rick’s disappearance from the main series. Dead City Season 3 entered production in late 2025, with a 2026 or 2027 premiere depending on AMC’s scheduling.

The Telltale Games

The Walking Dead: Season One, developed by Telltale Games and released episodically across 2012, is the franchise’s most critically significant game and one of the most acclaimed narrative games ever released. The story follows Lee Everett, a convicted man who finds a young girl named Clementine during the outbreak and becomes her protector, with player choices shaping the relationships and outcomes across five episodes. The game won numerous Game of the Year awards and demonstrated that interactive fiction could carry the emotional weight of serious dramatic storytelling. Season Two in 2013 and 2014 shifted the protagonist role to Clementine herself. A New Frontier followed in 2016 and 2017. The Final Season in 2018 and 2019 was completed by Skybound Games after Telltale’s closure, concluding Clementine’s story. The Walking Dead: Michonne in 2016 was a three-episode spinoff.