[4][5] The comic book series focuses on Rick Grimes, a Kentucky deputy who is shot in the line of duty and awakens from a coma in a zombie apocalypse that has resulted in a state-wide quarantine.

[6] The original pitch by Kirkman and Moore was for a follow-up to George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, with the series taking place in the 1960s.

The fan-oriented event was for October 13, 2018 and coincided with the release of a Walking Dead #1 15th Anniversary Variant Edition, with cover art by Charlie Adlard.

The company also noted that additional limited edition collectibles and festivities would be announced at a future date, prior to the October 2018 event.

He had envisioned the series to end around the time that Rick Grimes and his allies reach the Commonwealth, a large human community protected from the walkers, as this would allow him to give a complete arc.

Kirkman kept the series' end a secret as he worked with Adlard to create cover art and solicitation information for Diamond Comic Distributors for non-existent issues through #196 that would have been released through October 2019, creating a storyline that hinted at the death of Carl Grimes, Rick's son, in the wake of Rick's death.

Among the survivors are his former best friend Shane (who secretly has a sexual relationship with Rick's wife, Lori), firm clerk and college graduate Andrea, her sister Amy, a mechanic named Jim, a pizza delivery boy named Glenn, car salesman Dale, shoe salesman Allen and his wife, Donna, as well as their children, Ben and Billy.

They soon find a farm run by Hershel Greene, after one of his hunters, Otis, accidentally shot Carl while hunting a deer.

Otis meets a katana-wielding survivor named Michonne, who is brought into the group, but struggles to acclimate, facing her own demons.

Michonne, Rick and Glenn are later held in captivity by The Governor, a leader of a town called Woodbury who plan to take over the prison.

After the prison assault, the remaining survivors regroup at Hershel's farm, and meet Abraham Ford, Eugene Porter and Rosita Espinosa.

The group travel to Washington DC where they are hunted by Chris, encounter Gabriel Stokes, a priest, and are then recruited by Aaron and Eric to join the Alexandria Safe-Zone, a city run by congressman Douglas Monroe.

Among the residents are Heath and Dr. Denise Cloyd, who quickly become close allies to the core group, and eventually the conflicted Nicholas.

A group of men, known as The Scavengers, tries to conquer Alexandria; the fight attracts a pack of walkers that invades the safe zone, which led to the death of many Alexandrians.

Oceanside, another community out at sea, is established, as well as safety perimeters across the DC area, which are violated by the presence of the Whisperers, a tribe of people disguised as the dead who have rejected the notion of re-establishing civilization.

Rick's group classifies the undead as either walkers, roamers or lurkers, the former being more likely to venture toward a loud noise in search of human prey.

At the same time, it was reported that when Kirkman pitched the series he had claimed that the virus was an alien biological attack in preparation of a full-scale invasion but that he had no intention of following this idea.

[35] With the series' ninth season, which started broadcast in October 2018, Angela Kang was promoted to showrunner with Gimple becoming in charge of all Walking Dead properties at AMC.

[38] These spin-offs either introduce new characters and settings to the universe or continue plot threads from the original television series, with little connection to the comics.

[42] Telltale's game, The Walking Dead, first released in 2012, and followed the characters of Lee Everett, a former teacher convicted of murder, and Clementine, a pre-teen girl left alone at the start of the zombie apocalypse; it contained tie-ins with the comic by brief appearances of Glenn Rhee and Hershel Greene, narratively prior to their first appearances in the comic series.

The series was a critical success, with much of the praise for the characterization of Clementine and Lee, and is stated to have caused a resurgence in the waning adventure game market since 2000.

He took the opportunity to secure the rights of Telltale's The Walking Dead properties, and temporarily hired most of the staff that were working on the game so that the series could be finished as well as to close out Clementine's story, which he felt needed to be done.

A series of novels based on the comics, written by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga, were released between 2011 and 2014 focusing on the antagonist "The Governor".

Taking place in the initial outbreak, the books chronicle his experiences from surviving in the newly ravaged world to the establishment of himself as leader of Woodbury, and finally tying up the conclusion to the prison arc storyline in the comics.