The Walking Dead - Kirkman on his writing process

You’re a father now; has becoming a parent affected your writing at all?
Kirkman: Yes, but not in the way you would think. With The Walking Dead in particular, when I had a child, I did the same thing every human being does when they have kids, I think. They go into that mode where realistic human violence is a little more unnerving for them, especially anything involving kids. My wife and I used to love watching violent movies together and then, after we had kids, it’s this whole thing where you think “Now I understand the affection that you have for a kid, and this is somebody’s child in this ridiculous Rambo movie.” You tend to want to avoid violence.
And what that has made me do is, anytime I’m writing The Walking Dead, and I come up with a violent scene or a big event that’s pretty gruesome, I’ll sometimes think “Is this too much?” and then I’ll go “Don’t puss out, Kirkman! Just because you’re a parent doesn’t mean you have to change this. You would have done this before you had kids. You don’t want The Walking Dead to be different because you have kids.” And so I do it. Whereas, before I had kids, I might have talked myself out of it. I might have been like “Maybe this is a little too intense.” Now, I’m like “You’re only thinking this because you have kids, do it anyway.” I feel like The Walking Dead has become more violent because I have kids.

You’ve got a new title, The Infinite, ready to debut, the second season of The Walking Dead is shooting now and not just one, but two board games on the way, Skybound humming along — any other new projects on the horizon?
Kirkman: The Infinite is really the last new project I’ll be doing for a while. I have one more one-shot, special, finite thing that I’ll be announcing at Comic-Con. Other than that, I’m really trying to focus on what I have on my plate right now, which is The Walking Dead comic, The Walking Dead TV show, Invincible, The Infinite, Super Dinosaur and then the various books that Skybound is doing, which I think is enough to keep me pulling my hair out and miserable and overworked … which is how I like it.

Source: Wired

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