You may have noticed a change in art style after the first 6 issues or so of The Walking Dead comic series. That's because Tony Moore dropped out and Charlie Adlard came on board. He's stuck around ever since and his dirtier style of drawing the zombies is noticeable in what we've seen so far from production stills. Adlard spoke with the site Things from Another World on seeing his style brought to undeadlife.
Here's Adlard's rendition of the entire cast of TWD as the undead.
"What can I say . . . it’s amazing! They’ve really captured the feel of the book, which is incredible really because I thought they could’ve gone down a much easier route visually and not tried to be inspired by TWD’s look," said Adlard.
When asked if he thinks the series will continue to show a similar style to his art in the comics (issue 7(ish)# all the way up to the current issue 75#), Adlard said, "I think it will. From what I’ve seen so far–as I said above–they’ve consciously gone for the book’s visual look. So I’m confident that the rest of the series will be like that. Very flattering!," he responded.
But what of his involvement with AMC? Is Adlard on the set or behind the scenes with the production team? He reveals that this isn't the case,
"Not really–I haven’t been asked but, on the other hand, I didn’t actively pursue it either. I’m too busy with the book, and that’s what is important to me–I also trust the folks making the show to do absolute justice to our series. The folks at AMC have been great though, and have been incredibly kind to me over the last few months." he said.
After talking about the TV show Adlard also spoke about the comic and it's process month to month. He also tells it how all TWD fans know it to be - that the zombies aren't really the focus in the longrun.
"I’ve always viewed the zombies as background characters, it’s the humans that fire me up creatively. I’ve always seen TWD as a book about a bunch of disparate human characters coping with an extreme situation, which this time, just happens to be the zombie apocalypse! Of course it’s fun drawing the undead–but I always get more of a kick out of the human characters. It’s what makes TWD work," said Adlard.
So there you have it - Adlard isn't like series writer/creator Robert Kirkman in the sense that he's behind the scenes with AMC - but he's probably getting some of that delicious coin to stay happy. And the TV show is going with his style so everybody wins.