The Walking Dead's artist Charlie Adlard on AMC's TV adaptation

Shropshire artist Charlie Adlard talks about his work on The Walking Dead — the graphic novel that's now a multi-million pound TV series.

A few years ago Shropshire artist Charlie Adlard was sitting in a Shrewsbury coffee shop discussing his latest project, an apocalyptic monthly horror comic book called The Walking Dead.

It's the continuing story of survival in a world overrun by zombies. A world where the Night of the Living Dead gave way to the Dawn of the Dead; where the Dawn of the Dead became the Day of the Dead, and where the Day of the Dead gave way to the Dinnertime, Twilight, Evening, Breakfast, Lunchtime, Next Day, Next Week, Next Month, Next Year, and So On and So On of the Dead.

In short, it's story of survival in a word gone quite literally to hell, with no happy ending in sight. It's about how people cope in the aftermath of a terrible catastrophe; how they fight to survive. It is, if you like, a horror story with brains – even if those brains are being chased by an army of shuffling, ravenous, walking corpses.

The Walking Dead is written by the American author Robert Kirkman, and Charlie explained how Kirkman's scripts were emailed to him and drawn at his studio in a quiet part of Shrewsbury. He then emailed the finished pages back to the States for publication.

The books had amassed an army of fans around the world. Even Hollywood was showing an interest. "You never know," said Charlie. "You never know…"

Flash forward to the present day. We're in Charlie Adlard's kitchen and there's a box on the table. "This arrived," he says, opening it to reveal a glossy, expensive-looking book. It's a publicity pack for the first episodes of The Walking Dead – a $20m, six episode television adaptation from AMC, the American company behind ratings hits such as Mad Men.

"It's surreal more than exciting," says the artist, examining the box. "I don't know, it's just one of those things you can't believe is happening as it's going along. When you get sent stuff like that you just think, 'huh?'

"It's surreal because where I live you don't get a sense of it all happening around you. I think if I lived in the States or lived nearer Hollywood and I was flying around a lot more I would get more of a sense of it, but because it's happening 5,000 miles away..."

The series begins in America tomorrow night, Halloween, and comes to Britain on November 5 on Sky.

The pilot episode was directed by Frank Darabont, who made the Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. He has overseen the series, which was produced by Gale Anne Hurd, whose credits include The Terminator and Aliens. The star is Andrew Lincoln, who was in This Life, Teachers and Love Actually.

"We were always going for the TV option, to be honest," says Charlie, "because it just worked so much better as a TV series than a stand-alone film.

"They're only doing six episodes to begin with," he adds, "but the buzz on it is so huge, especially in genre circles, that to be honest unless it's a godalmighty cock-up they're going to go to a second series."

What's impressive is the speed of how it came together after several years of being in limbo. A deal was announced about a year ago and by the middle of June Charlie was in Atlanta, Georgia, where four streets had been sealed off for filming.

"That was amazing," he says. "You did feel like you were stepping out on to a movie set and not a TV set. They've spent $20m on these six episodes, so that's a fair old chunk of change. It's not some cheap little production, this is full-on."

Charlie was there for "zombie weekend", where around 100 extras were dressed up to look like the living dead for the big action scenes. Thousands more will be added in using computers.

These are old-school zombies, not the modern ones who run. "We're shamblers," he laughs. "Running ones aren't bad, but they're not proper zombies. They give you no chance."

Charlie was a zombie extra for the filming, although playing dead in full make-up and costume proved too much in the sweltering Atlanta summer.

"It was 35 degrees with virtually 100 per cent humidity. It was just punishing, it really was.

"The two main sources of conversation out there were the weather and the World Cup. I thought it was a British thing to talk about the weather, but everyone was just dying. It was just horrible. And to be standing in direct sunlight in all that make-up…"

Costumes had been put through a process to make them dirty and decayed. "The material had gone really hard and scraggy, so you were told to wear a black T shirt underneath to prevent chafing. Of course, you're in two layers of clothes already without anything else. It was quite horrendous."

Still, the results should be worth it. He's been to conventions in America where Walking Dead promotions have attracted audiences of 3,000 people.

He was at a San Diego convention in July and they were very excited about it. Charlie was even asked to supply artwork for a 40ftx10ft Walking Dead advertisement banner.

"I walked into the convention centre and it just took my breath away. You don't think how big 40 feet by 10 feet is. And they had two similar banners hanging in the atrium."

He also felt a moment of national pride when, in front a huge audience, one of the American actors was eulogising series star Andrew Lincoln's performance – the gushing praise leaving the Englishman looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"His response was to stand up and say, 'Uuhhmm. Yeah. Ditto.' I just felt like leaping up and going 'Yay for the Brits. Yay for the restraint.'"

Back home in Shrewsbury, where Charlie lives with his wife and children, and where a large amount of building work is currently taking place, the film business really is a world away. Art is the day job.

Charlie Adlard has been drawing ever since he was a little boy. His parents and Shrewsbury School teachers encouraged his talent and he eventually became a professional illustrator after visiting comic conventions in America to look for work.

Over 20 years he's drawn Spider-Man, Superman and Batman not to mention more than 70 instalments of The Walking Dead.

However, he won't be watching the live action version when it goes out because he doesn't have Sky TV. Instead he'll see the DVDs sent to him by AMC. It's one of the advantages of being involved in such a big production, but still keeping a sense of distance.

"I was invited down to Hollywood for the premiere, on the 26th I think it was, but I just haven't got the time to be honest. They offered to fly me out, but you can't go out there for two days and then come back again and get on. You'd be absolutely knackered…"

Quite. You'd be dead on your feet. Almost like a ... zombie.

By Andrew Owen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwpatSeulLs