The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman says TV show will end differently to comic book series

'I hope the show ends and the comic keeps going'

The Walking Dead comic book series was created over a decade ago (in 2003) and is still going strong (it's on issue 156) - so much so that creator Robert Kirkman wants it to continue beyond the on-screen counterpart, which is less than a month away from airing its seventh season.

He told Kevin Smith on his Geeking Out podcast: "I hope the show ends and the comic keeps going.

"I hope the show ends and the comic keeps going. The comic was the comic before the show and so I try to maintain that. I know how I want to end The Walking Dead so I can't tell anyone because I don't want it on the show before I get it in my comic," he continued, before quipping: "So, if the show were to end ever, at any point and the comic was still going, I would have to sit down with Scott [Gimple] and pretend I have no idea how to end it and come up with another ending."

Note his words - "...if the show were to end ever' - this backs up the notion that AMC plan to cintune its zombie series for quite some time yet. The arrival of Negan - the new antagonist played by Jeffrey dean Morgan = signals the start of the show'ss econd phase despite starting in 2009.

The Walking Dead season 7 will air in the US on 24 October and will air in the UK the following day (25 October) on FOX. Find out everything we know about the upcoming batch of episodes here.