Robert Kirkman is the screenwriter of some of the most remarkable comics of the last twenty years, with in particular Invincible, Outcast, Oblivion Song and The Walking Dead. Guest of honor at the Angoulême comics festival, the American is at the center of an immersive exhibition where visitors can wander through his pop worlds.
On this occasion, Robert Kirkman publishes in France his new series Die! Die! Die! and especially the end of The Walking Dead, whose surprise announcement caught fans short last summer. Kirkman has agreed to return for BFMTV on this unexpected and shocking end. And he comments on the choices that led to the memorable death of Rick Grimes, the iconic hero of this series which began in October 2003.
How did you approach Rick’s death?
What is very important in this scene is the silence. There is no onomatopoeia. The gun has a silencer. We wanted there to be no sound so that we could feel the scene in slow motion, as if we were in the cinema. We wanted the reader to feel as big a shock as he did. In the previous pages, the pistol was aimed at Rick. We have already seen this kind of scene many times in The Walking Dead. Rick has already been threatened and charged, but he has always managed to cope. This scene is the only time he is unlucky. It was very important that he did not die instantly. I wanted to see the regrets in Sebastian’s eyes.
Was staging Rick’s death difficult for you?
No, because I knew that the next volume marked the end of the series. Many readers, on the other hand, were unaware of it. They were turned upside down by the death of Rick Grimes. They wondered in which direction the series would continue. We received a lot of emails from fans asking us what we were going to do next!
How did you imagine Rick as a walker?
With this scene, we tried to go as far in emotion as possible. How much time has passed [depuis l’assassinat de Rick, NDLR], we knew Rick would become a walker and by the time Carl found out he would be up and coming back to life. What is interesting in this scene is that it can be compared to chapter 50. Carl, in this issue, is much younger and believes that his father, whom he sees moving like a zombie, is dead. But Rick is in the shadows and Carl did not understand that his father had just woken up! Carl reacts by putting down his pistol: “I can’t live like this anymore,” he says. He gives up. He is waiting to be killed by his father whom he believes to be zombified. That was there are over 140 chapters. Carl is now much older. He is horrified when he sees the walker. He is as scared as when he was a child, but his instinct is stronger than anything and he shoots before he can understand his gesture. Later in the chapter, in another scene, he explains that he did not understand that it was his father …
How long did you know Rick was going to die?
I always knew Rick would end like this and the story would end with his death. I knew that his actions in the Commonwealth arc would lead to his loss. I knew that his death must have coincided with the moment when he would have repaired the world and found a community large enough to rebuild civilization and imagine a more altruistic society than the previous one. Rick could only let down his guard when civilization and peace were returning. In the prison arc, Rick would never have let down his guard. No one could have caught him that way and killed him.
How do you feel about watching the last image in the series, which depicts Carl and his daughter reading stories of Rick’s exploits?
This image makes me happy. The Walking Dead is the saddest and most sinister book I’ve worked on. It was the most beautiful scene to end this series. If you are in chapters 10 or 65 of The Walking Dead and you know this picture is the last in the series, you shouldn’t be able to figure it out: “How can this guy sit peacefully in his rocking chair reading a story to his daughter? It’s impossible in this world!” (Laughter). After the grueling journey that this series is, after having experienced what these characters went through, you deserved this image. It’s also the culmination of Rick’s teaching to Carl. It’s a great reward for the reader. I am very proud of this ending.
Did you have this image in mind since 2013?
Yes. The Walking Dead started to appear in 2003. I talk about it in the afterword of the epilogue. I have considered several endings that I have ousted over the years. I had the idea a little late. Once I had this image in mind, I knew exactly what I had to write to achieve it. We must have been in chapter 70 or 80 when I had the idea.
You kept it secret for six years!
I told Charlie [[Adlard, the designer of the series, Editor’s note] about six years ago. No one except him knew. I don’t know if my editor, Sean Mackiewicz, was upset, but he was very surprised! He discovered that the last number was the last when he finished the script. I just told her it was a special number, with more pagination. I was writing the script ten pages at a time, drop by drop, to keep Charlie busy. He didn’t know which way the story was going when he read the script. I did it because I wanted them to react like the readers of the series would. I wanted people to be surprised at the end.
The tone of this last volume is more calm. Society is rebuilding. It almost looks like a western, with the myth of the new frontier…
Yes, it’s the birth of a new world. There is a lot of hope …
It’s very American.
Yes, I guess it’s very American. I hope that by reading the last issue the reader will understand how this new civilization will evolve. I slipped a lot of details in this direction. The way of life is different, less dangerous. That’s why the story ends and we don’t follow the lives of these people anymore. They succeeded. Their mission is over. This world continues to spin without us.
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