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Illustration of Walkers (The Walking Dead comic)
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
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Walkers (The Walking Dead comic)

Also called: roamers, lurkers, biters, stinkers
ComicsUndeadShambles2000 to 2009

The walkers of Robert Kirkman's comic are the slow, largely mindless dead of a zombie apocalypse seen through a sheriff's deputy who wakes from a coma. The series never explains the outbreak and ran for 193 issues over sixteen years. It was adapted as the AMC television series and its six companion series.12

Battle it
First appeared
2003
First issue October 2003
Source work
The Walking Dead (2003)
Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard (Image Comics)
Made in
USA
What causes it
Never explained
Never explained; Kirkman has said an answer exists but does not matter to the story.
How you become one
Death reanimates the body unless the brain is destroyed; a bite causes a fatal infection.
How it moves
Shambles
They follow and copy one another, which builds large herds, and they drift toward loud noise.
Intelligence
Mindless
Weak spots
  • destroying the brain

When did it first appear?

Ancient worldMiddle Ages1500 to 18991900 to 19671968 to 19992000 to 20092010 to today2003

First issue October 2003

field notes

What the sources say

1

Survivors call them walkers, roamers, lurkers, biters or stinkers12

2

A living tribe, the Whisperers, disguise themselves as the dead to move among them12

3

The series ran for 193 issues from October 2003 to July 2019 and ended without advance notice12

4

Winner of the Eisner Award for best continuing series12

5

Kirkman pitched it with a false promise of an alien-plague explanation to get it published12

6

Lurkers are walkers that stay inactive until something stimulates them12

Could you outrun it?

Speed class from how the sources describe it (shambles), not a measurement.

Walkers (The Walking Dead comic) about 3 km/h (1.9 mph)
You, walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
You, jogging about 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
A fit adult sprinting about 24 km/h (15 mph)
A fast cyclist about 37 km/h (23 mph)

Sources

  1. The Walking Dead (comic book) - Wikipedia
  2. Zombies - Walking Dead Wiki (Fandom)

Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at [email protected].

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