As of right now, we know very little about the upcoming spinoff from AMC's immensely popular "The Walking Dead." But comic creator Robert Kirkman shed some light on the new series in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. In it, Kirkman says that "Fear The Walking Dead" will examine humanity in a post-apocalyptic setting.
"There's a large cast in this show, just like there's a large cast in The Walking Dead. But I think at its core this is a story of Travis and Madison, who are these two schoolteachers that both have kids from previous marriages and are very much in love. And then one of the things that really excited me about this show is the fact that this is a show about two people who are a team, and they do back each other up. They do love and respect each other. They're a happy couple, which is something that you don't see a lot of on cable television these days. Usually cable television focuses on infidelity, love triangles, divorces, marriages breaking down - that's really the meat and potatoes of the drama we mostly deal with on TV. So having this interesting couple at the core of this show, fighting against the backdrop of civilization crumbling and the zombie apocalypse, really is the core of things. They've got two sets of kids. It's an interesting situation."
It sounds as if this new series will have a strong emotional foundation between Travis and Madison. But where in the timeline does this companion series take place?
"We're very early, but if you think about the way a zombie outbreak would happen, it would happen very organically. It would be happening for a while behind the scenes. In pockets of civilization there would be news stories that didn't really make sense and didn't seem connected. And that's kind of where we pick things up. There are a lot of things on the news, there's a lot of chatter and paranoia and concern. And yet the vast majority of the population is ignoring these things and talking about their daily lives, and that's kind of where we pick things up. And things ramp up very quickly from there."
"Fear the Walking Dead" will premiere on AMC this summer.