Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, isn’t so keen on one “lame” term for zombies – it even makes him “shudder” when he hears it.
Walkers, runners, infected, Clickers, freakers, crawlers, skinwalkers, and the undead: these are all names for zombies across the world of horror, all the way from the days of George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci to 28 Days Later, The Last of Us, and more.
Despite its shortcomings in the later seasons, The Walking Dead will always be recognized as a titan of the sub-genre, pioneering zombie action on television with incredible makeup and effects.
Kirkman, who wrote the original comics as well as Invincible, used a specific term for zombies throughout the series – but he regrets it.
The Walking Dead creator explains “lame” name for zombies
As part of the ‘Cutting Room Floor with Robert Kirkman’ bonus feature in The Walking Dead Deluxe #54, he spoke about “the birth of the ‘herd’ terminology, frequently used in this series and the TV show.”
“Fun fact… in hindsight, ‘herd’ makes me think of cows, which, well… isn’t very threatening,” he said.
“So, I very quickly came to dislike the term. It just started sounding… lame to me pretty quickly. To be honest, I shudder a bit when I hear it or read it.
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“The main reason for that is that almost immediately after it started appearing in print, I realized ‘horde’ would have been a much better name. Ugh.”
Kirkman eventually introduced another community that referred to herds as hordes, “so I kind of fixed it… but not really. Herds. Sigh.”
In the issue, Abraham tells Rick he calls them herds because they “can’t walk a straight line and are as dumb as a post – they’ll lose interest or walk off in the wrong damn direction.”
“They’re stupid as f*ck. But these f*cking massive groups of roaming zombies, did you call them roamers? That’s cool. These f*cking groups are called herds. At least – that’s what we call them,” he adds.
For more coverage of The Walking Dead, click here. You can also find out more about Invincible Season 2 here.
