The Walking Dead Creator Says Carl’s Death Doesn’t Bother Him

On the list of all the major ways The Walking Dead TV series has diverged from the comic books, the recent death of Carl Grimes will go down as one of the biggest. Rick’s son has been a constant presence in the source material and it was a massive shock when Chandler Riggs’ character was revealed to have been munched on by a walker at the end of the midseason finale, ahead of his eventual passing in episode 9.

But how does TWD’s creator Robert Kirkman feel about this huge change from his original storyline? The writer has said before that Carl might be one of his favourite characters from the franchise, so surely he was a bit put out by the teen’s demise, right?

While chatting on the Talking Dead aftershow, Kirkman revealed that he’s actually “not at all” bothered by the move, explaining that he’s gotten used to the series forging out its own path.

“It’s something that I’ve gotten used to, it happens from time to time on the show.”

In fact, Kirkman went on to explain that he’s actually “more excited” now than before due to this significant change. He believes that it’s much more of a ride for the audience if they can’t look to his comic books to second-guess what’s about to happen on TV.

“Really if anything, it just makes me more excited. I think that any time that path is not set, any time you can’t look at a comic book series and go, ‘oh, I know exactly what’s going to happen,’ it makes things a little bit more exciting and dealing with those unknowns, when we’re in the writers room, when we’re working on season 9, all those changes that kind of snowball out from that, it just makes for a better show.”

Unfortunately, Kirkman might be about to have to get used to another of his long-running characters being killed off on The Walking Dead. Word has it that Lauren Cohan’s on her way out of the show due to a pay dispute with the network, which could mean that Maggie has to be written out at the start of season 9.

Would that be another “exciting” development, though, or a character exit too far? What do you think?