The Walking Dead (Photo credit: andres musta)

By Natalie Abrams

When The Walking Dead returns this fall, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) & Co. will still be residing in the prison — but that doesn’t mean we’re in for a lull while the group learns how to be a community again. After all, there’s still the ever-present danger of The Governor (David Morrissey), who abandoned Woodbury and left his former residents to be taken in by Rick. But how is Rick dealing in a world where nearly everyone he’s gotten close to has died and his son is on a precarious path to becoming a monster? TVGuide.com turned to executive producer and comic book creator Robert Kirkman and new showrunner Scott Gimple to get the scoop on the new season and which elements of the comics will be introduced this year.

How does it feel going into Comic-Con not only celebrating the AMC show, but 10 years of the comic?

Robert Kirkman: It’s bizarre. We are heading to the 10-year anniversary and it doesn’t feel like 10 years. It certainly is a very strange feeling.

Because you’re so far ahead in the comics, do you ever considering introducing storylines much earlier, like bringing in ultimate villain Negan?

Kirkman: That’s definitely a real temptation when you are adapting a show. It’s sometimes a struggle because I feel like there are very cool things that are waiting in the wings in the comics that we could do earlier in the show. But those things only work the way they work because of everything that came before them. We have to build up to them properly. Negan isn’t going to be as cool if we don’t set up this, this, this, and this. We do want to do Negan, and it seems likes everyone on the show does want to do Negan, but we are going to have to do all these other things first.

Scott Gimple: Reading the book now and reading Negan as a character, I’m like, “Damn, there’s so much to do before we get to him!” One of my favorite issues with him recently was the Carl/Negan issue. I think it’d be such an amazing episode of TV, but we have a lot to do before we get there.

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