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.