The Walking Dead Creator Unveil How The Zombie Apocalypse Has Begun

The show is 10 years old now, AMC’s The Walking Dead aired and six months after the comic book ended with issue #193. Now, after all this time, writer and co-creator Robert Kirkman has finally told what actually started the zombie apocalypse in the show. Turns out it was aliens all along–well, kind of.

He was answering to a fan on Twitter who asked how the series’ zombies came to be, Kirkman said space had something to do with it. Apparently, a “space spore” is what created the zombies in The Walking Dead’s universe.

Kirkman and original series artist Tony Moore tossed a sequel to George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a 1968 horror movie in which scientists thought revived corpses were caused by a space probe’s return and explosive radiation. Kirkman’s “space spore” answer is likely a tribute to Romero’s cult horror classic.

Kirkman’s statement seemingly confirms previous statements he has provided, such as one in 2018 where he said the zombie virus and resulting disaster was because of the reason “a crazy sci-fi thing that would make the story all that much weirder.”

In the 2018 interview, Kirkman actually said the zombie apocalypse’s cause means very limited because he doesn’t believe the series’ characters would get any explanation. “Honestly if a scientist from Washington came to the character and told them what happened the characters would just shrug and say ‘Oh… okay,'” Kirkman said at the interview. “It wouldn’t change their lives at all.”

In an interview from 2017, Kirkman said the show unlikely to investigate a cure for the infectious virus, indicating that it “would be a boring show” if everything covered up neatly with a cure for the virus. So while the comic book has finished, we’ll have to wait and see how the tv show will handle the zombie virus.