It turns out that horror icon George A. Romero has been hiding in plain sight in The Walking Dead this entire time. Series' writer Robert Kirkman confirms that his infamous zombie comic book features multiple cameos of the venerated director all throughout the series.
The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic comic by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Tony Moore and largely follows a group of survivors trying to get by in a world dominated by zombies. Led by central protagonist Rick Grimes, the survivors encounter a number of horrors in the new, twisted status quo of an outright zombie apocalypse. The story builds on classic tropes related to zombies and manages to add a few new tweaks to the classic staple of horror. The Walking Dead's creators have not been shy when discussing the comic's influence from classic zombie media, such as the movies of horror film legend, George A. Romero.
But Romero's work on zombie films such as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead had such an influence on the horror subgenre, Kirkman just had to give the creator the best tribute possible. In the letter column of The Walking Dead #46, a reader sends in a message regarding the creative team’s use of real people as zombies in the series. Walking Dead fan Stewart McNaught implores series’ writer Robert Kirkman to include a cameo from the “granddaddy of zombie horror” due to his reputation as the “man who started it all”, meaning the modern zombie story. Not only does Kirkman confirm that George A. Romero has already appeared as a zombie in the series before, but that the director has appeared "no less than three times". Kirkman even expresses shock that no one has noticed.
George A. Romero's Impact on The Walking Dead
Despite confirming that The Walking Dead features cameos of the Father of the Zombie Film, Kirkman remained quite mum on where those appearances take place. While Kirkman may be surprised to find that no one pegged Romero’s zombified appearances, it’s admittedly hard to differentiate him from any of the other rotted corpses shambling about the wasteland. Still, the numerous cameos in the comic shows that The Walking Dead’s creative team recognizes the impact Romero made in horror fiction.
There’s little doubt that The Walking Dead exploded into one of the most popular series in the last several years. From shows and video games, The Walking Dead began a love of zombie stories for an entire generation. But the series stands on the shoulders of popular zombie media before it. Movies like the ones made by Romero molded what zombies were in the public consciousness and gave creators like Kirkman the inspiration for their own tales about the undead. Giving George A. Romero multiple cameos in The Walking Dead as a zombie honors the director in a way he’d undoubtedly appreciate.