Walking Dead’s zombies came between friends
Artist suing former Walking Dead collaborator
There’s an elephant in the room — a stampeding, flesh-eating zombie elephant. OK, not really. In fact, there’s no room involved. I’m interviewing Tony Moore, the original artist of The Walking Dead comic book over the phone, to advance his appearance this weekend at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. But I can’t help but feel the presence of said zombie elephant as we speak.
That’s because, despite my journalistic prodding there’s little Moore can say about the zombiecomic-book-turned-smash-amcTV hit that he says he co-created with writer Robert Kirkman back in 2003 when Image Comics debuted the Walking Dead series.
Moore is currently in the midst of a lawsuit filed against Kirkman. His lawyer has ordered him to keep quiet about the case and his role in the creation of The Walking Dead.
In the complaint Moore alleges that he was talked into assigning his interests in the material over to Kirkman, who has since presumably reaped considerable rewards now that The Walking Dead has become a TV and pop culture sensation.
Today Kirkman serves as an executive producer and writer on the TV series.
Moore, who has reportedly received little compensation for the series, claims he is entitled to as much as half of the proceeds from the lucrative franchise.
In a statement sent to the Herald, however, Kirkman claims that Moore receives regular payment for his work on the early Walking Dead issues as well as royalties for the TV show.
“To assert otherwise is simply incorrect,” Kirkman states. He adds: “The lawsuit is ridiculous,” and he notes that the credits in the original Walking Dead issues site him as creator and writer. Moore, Kirkman states, was hired to provide the art.
In our interview, Moore wouldn’t elaborate. But he did reminisce about the early days of his relationship with Kirkman. That takes the former collaborators back to the seventh grade, when the two met in a history class in Cynthiana, Ky., which is also the Southern U.S. town where the horrors begin in The Walking Dead.
Back then the two legal combatants bonded over their mutual love of comic books and horror movies. They shared a dream of one day achieving comic book stardom. Together, they took their first stab at it in 2000, selfpublishing the super hero parody comic Battle Pope.
Eventually Kirkman began working for Image Comics, a company in which he later became a partner, and in 2003 he and Moore committed their lifelong zombie love to the printed page with The Walking Dead series.
Moore wasn’t on the book long, however. Soon he was replaced by artist Charles Adlard. Moore says he can’t discuss the circumstances behind his leaving the series.
But despite his grievances, he stresses that he is a fan of the TV adaptation of his work.
“Obviously there’s some bittersweetness to it, but I still get ex- cited to see it succeed,” he says. “I watch it every week.” He’s particularly thrilled with the way in which the special effects team has brought his visuals to life. “I think they’re doing the best stuff that’s ever been done in the genre, and for TV, no less,” Moore says. “It’s really wild. . . . It captures, in a lot of ways, what I was trying to do, but unable to with the limits of what you can do on paper. They really tap into the spirit of what I was going for.”
When he and Kirkman started the series, “horror comics weren’t really commercially viable,” Moore says. “We didn’t know all this stuff was waiting in the wings in Hollywood. We got lucky (when zombies captured) the zeitgeist. We just happened to be right there waiting for it.”
Moore hasn’t let his legal dispute with Kirkman take his focus away from his work.
Some of his notable projects since leaving Walking Dead have included Fear Agent and The Exterminators, as well as issues of Ghost Rider and Venom for Marvel Comics. He says he has a new series in the works for Marvel, which is part super hero and part horror comic, but, alas, he was also under obligation not to reveal those plans.
Moore did become talkative, however, when he learned that one of his greatest artistic influences Bernie Wrightson, cocreator of DC Comics’ Swamp Thing, would also be appearing as a guest at the Calgary Expo this weekend.
“I am a huge fan of his work,” Moore gushed. “That illustrated edition of Frankenstein that he did, I kept that within arm’s length for many years. I’m excited to meet that guy.”
Sitting on the same side of the autograph table with artists of Wrightson’s calibre is a sensation Moore says he still hasn’t adapted to fully.
“When I get a chance to meet them I am so dumbfounded and star-struck,” he says. “But once you get to talk to them, you realize: ‘They’re the same kind of people I am,’ ” he says.
“It’s really bizarre when your heroes become your friends. It’s a surreal experience.”