Robert Kirkman

Robert Kirkman (born November 30, 1978) is an American comic book writer, screenwriter, and producer.

He is best known for co-creating The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Invincible, Tech Jacket, Outcast, Oblivion Song, and Fire Power for Image Comics, in addition to writing Ultimate X-Men, Irredeemable Ant-Man and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics.

He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt.

He is one of the five partners of Image Comics currently serving as COO, and the only one of the five who was not one of its co-founders.

Kirkman was born November 30, 1978, in Lexington, Kentucky, and was raised in Cynthiana, Kentucky.

Kirkman was a fan of zombie films such as the Night of the Living Dead series and Zombi 2 as well as zombie video games such as Resident Evil.

His first comic book work was the 2000 superhero parody Battle Pope, which he co-created with artist Tony Moore, self-published under the Funk-O-Tron label, and was adapted into a season of 8 animated webisodes that appeared on Spike TV's website in 2008.

Later, while pitching a new series, Science Dog, Kirkman and artist Cory Walker were hired to do a SuperPatriot miniseries for Image Comics.

While working on that book, Kirkman and E. J. Su created the 2002 Image series Tech Jacket, which ran six issues, and the one-shot title, Cloudfall.

In 2003, Kirkman and Walker created Invincible for Image's new superhero line.

The story surrounded the adolescent son of the world's most powerful superhero, who develops powers and starts his own superhero career.

Walker later failed to meet the monthly title's deadlines and was replaced by Ryan Ottley.

Shortly after the launch of Invincible, Kirkman and Moore began The Walking Dead (2003).

In 2003, Kirkman was hired by Marvel Comics to pen a revival of the 1990s Sleepwalker series, but it was canceled before being published; the contents of its first issue were included in Epic Anthology No. 1 (2004).

He soon became a mainstay at Marvel, writing the "Avengers Disassembled" issues of Captain America vol. 4, 2004's Marvel Knights 2099 one-shots event, Jubilee #1–6 and Fantastic Four: Foes #1–6, a two-year run on Ultimate X-Men and the entire Marvel Team-Up vol. 3 and the Irredeemable Ant-Man miniseries.

He continued his exploration of zombies by creating the series Marvel Zombies, in which an alternative Marvel universe's superheroes become zombies.

In 2005, Paramount Pictures announced it had bought the rights to produce an Invincible feature film, and hired Kirkman to write the screenplay.

However, due to a lack of significant development, the rights expired and reverted to Kirkman.

At Image, Kirkman and artist Jason Howard created the ongoing series The Astounding Wolf-Man, launching it on May 5, 2007, as part of Free Comic Book Day.

Kirkman edited the monthly series Brit, based on the character he created for the series of one-shots, illustrated by Moore and Cliff Rathburn.

It ran 12 issues.

Kirkman announced in 2007 that he and artist Rob Liefeld would team on a revival of Killraven for Marvel Comics.

Kirkman that year also said he and Todd McFarlane would collaborate on Haunt for Image Comics.

In late July 2008, Kirkman was made a partner at Image Comics, thereby ending his freelance association with Marvel.

Nonetheless, later in 2009, he and Walker produced the five-issue miniseries The Destroyer vol. 4 for Marvel's MAX imprint.

In 2009, Kirkman and Marc Silvestri took over the 2009–2010 Pilot Season for Top Cow Comics.

The 2009/2010 Pilot Season contains a series of five one-shot pilot comics that readers will be able to vote on which becomes an ongoing series.

Each series is co-created by Silvestri who also provides cover art.

In 2010, Kirkman co-founded the entertainment company Skybound Entertainment in order to develop properties in traditional and new media, including comics, television, and film.

The company also manages the license for The Walking Dead and Invincible.

In 2010, he also began producing the television adaption of his comic book series The Walking Dead, the pilot of which was directed by Frank Darabont.

Kirkman has written or co-written seven episodes of the series.

Kirkman also created and serves as an executive producer on the show's companion series, Fear the Walking Dead.

Kirkman said in 2012 that Image had balked at publishing a comics series featuring what it felt was simply another zombie story, prompting him to say the zombies were part of an alien plot—a notion he had no intention of using except as a means of selling the project.

Artist Charlie Adlard replaced Tony Moore with issue #7.

Moore continued to draw covers until issue 24 as well as the first four volumes of the trade paperbacks for the series.

In 2018, Skybound expanded to create Skybound Games to develop video games based on its intellectual property.

Kirkman is also known for creating and producing the television series' Outcast and Invincible, both adaptations of his own comic book series.

He has also written a number of episodes for The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

He is executive producer of the AMC series Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics, and the Korean pre-apocalyptic drama, Five Year.