The Walking Dead panel at New York Comic Con with photos

If you’re getting ready for tonight’s series premiere of AMC’s The Walking Dead, we have a look at the panel that happened a couple of weeks back at New York Comic Con. The event was probably one of the most anticipated of the entire weekend and filled the IGN theater to capacity. The panel brought out series creator Frank Darabont, producer Gale Hurd and writer Robert Kirkman, who’s also the writer and creator of the original comic series, discussing how the series came to be. The decision to go with a television series rather than a feature film was made because they felt that there had already been so many zombie films and that this material lent itself to a more serialized nature. When asked about the experience of working with AMC, they noted that the network was already familiar with Kirkman’s comic series and were enthusiastic about adapting it for TV. They have been very hands off and easy to work with allowing them produce the show how they saw fit.

Photo gallery after the jump…

Some members of the cast were also on hand to give insight into the production of the show and answer questions including Andrew Lincoln, Sarah Wayne Callies, Jon Bernthal, Laurie Holden, Steven Yeun and Norman Reedus. A number of the actors since signing on to the series had gone back and read the comics and realized that it doesn’t have a whole lot of issues with killing off characters on a regular basis. Kirkman noted that while he was very pleased to see these people bring his characters to life and he regretted that most of their characters wouldn’t last to see a second or third season. Norman Reedus’s character is one of a couple of new characters that were not in the original comics. Reedus, along with Michael Rooker, play two con-men who are also brothers. Kirkman remarked that he liked the characters so much that they may turn up in future issues of the comic.

A number of clips were also shown from the first two episodes. The show looks like it is remaining very faithful to the comic even they chosen to add some additional new characters added into the mix. The first season is scheduled to run six episodes with any future seasons running at thirteen episodes. The Walking Dead kicks off tonight at 10pm est with a 90 minute episode on AMC.