A recent critique by Joseph Hillström King—better known as Joe Hill and the son of Stephen King—has reignited debate over the Stephen King influence on The Walking Dead franchise, questioning just how directly it borrows from George A. Romero’s pioneering zombie cinema. Hill’s commentary, alongside the open acknowledgments from The Walking Dead’s creators, casts a spotlight on the origins and legacy of the world’s most famous zombie series, fueling an ongoing discussion about inspiration, ownership, and creative debt.
How George A. Romero and Stephen King Inspired a New Generation of Horror
The Walking Dead franchise has become a cultural juggernaut since its comic origins, but its roots extend much deeper. Joe Hill, son of horror legend Stephen King, reflected in the introduction to his 2019 book Full Throttle about absorbing horror fiction during his youth, influenced by his father as well as genre icons like George A. Romero. Romero, who collaborated with Stephen King on the 1982 film Creepshow, not only shaped Hill’s love for horror but fundamentally altered the DNA of zombie storytelling through his breakthrough film Night of the Living Dead.
Hill’s pointed comments have stirred conversation regarding how The Walking Dead, created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, owes its foundation not just to inspiration, but to the very structure given to the modern zombie by Romero. Hill did not mince words about what he perceives as a lopsided source of creative fortune for The Walking Dead’s creators:
Romero was the shaggy, rebel auteur who kind of invented the zombie apocalypse with his film Night of the Living Dead, who kind of forgot to copyright it, and who, as a result, kind of didn’t get rich off it. The makers of The Walking Dead will be forever grateful to Romero for being so good at directing and so bad at protecting his intellectual property.
—Joe Hill, Author and Son of Stephen King
With The Walking Dead’s adaptation into television, novels, and games, Hill frames the franchise’s trajectory as one shaped by both creative homage and an unintentional legal loophole. The question remains: has The Walking Dead’s massive success unduly benefited from Romero’s error in protecting his pioneering work?
Building on Zombie Roots: The Night of the Living Dead Foundation
To understand how deeply Romero’s influence runs, it’s important to recognize the cultural history of zombies. The concept of reanimated corpses dates back centuries, often traced to Haitian folklore. Nevertheless, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead provided the defining template for the modern zombie—the blank-eyed, flesh-hungry ghouls symbolizing societal collapse and existential dread. Interestingly, the original film never called its monsters “zombies,” sticking to “ghouls,” yet its impact is undeniable.
The Walking Dead clearly follows the path Romero blazed. The franchise’s depiction of societal breakdown and the roaming, cannibalistic undead directly mirrors the themes and aesthetics first presented on a low-budget black-and-white screen in 1968. Key creators Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore have repeatedly cited Romero as their core inspiration. Since zombie stories thrive on borrowed tropes, is this merely another case of creative influence, or has The Walking Dead truly leveraged a lack of copyright enforcement for massive gain?
For longtime fans, the answer is rooted in the franchise’s very origin: The Walking Dead began as a direct spin-off of Night of the Living Dead, initially pitched with explicit references to Romero’s film. Publisher advice later led Kirkman to issue the story as an original property, allowing for full creative (and financial) control while keeping the original blueprint intact.
The Walking Dead’s Hidden History: From Spin-Off pitch to Blockbuster Franchise
The early drafts of The Walking Dead did not shy away from their heritage. According to reports from Comic Book Resources and statements from Kirkman, The Walking Dead was conceived as a continuation of the world Romero created. The initial comic pitch even included the now-iconic news broadcast of the dead rising, just as Romero depicted, and the opening scene focused on Rick Grimes at home with his family facing the outbreak—contrasting with the familiar television series premiere of Grimes awakening in a hospital.
This close kinship extended to formal matters as well. Owing to an error in the original film’s copyright paperwork, Night of the Living Dead entered the public domain, allowing Kirkman’s publisher to greenlight use of certain story elements without legal encumbrance. Jim Valentino, a key figure at Image Comics, advised a shift toward presenting The Walking Dead as a wholly new creation, which led to the (minor) changes that allowed Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard to maintain full creative rights and reap the rewards.
Both series remain visually distinct yet fundamentally entwined: Romero’s and Kirkman’s stories unfold in black and white, and both exploit this to navigate censors as well as to amplify their thematic bleakness. Despite these similarities, no character crossover occurs, giving The Walking Dead a space to cultivate its unique cast while still using Romero’s groundwork as a scaffold. Still, the franchise owes its entire existence—at least in its earliest phase—to that public domain accident.
According to creator Robert Kirkman, fan debate over this indebtedness is fair, but he is candid about the importance of Romero’s inspiration in his own work. Kirkman admits to potentially overusing some narrative techniques throughout The Walking Dead’s long comic run, but also emphasizes how the source material enabled the exploration of new directions in character and drama.
Open Acknowledgment: The Walking Dead’s Debt to Romero
Kirkman has never attempted to minimize Romero’s influence on The Walking Dead. In the reissued comic The Walking Dead Deluxe #55, Kirkman reflected on his sources of creative spark and articulated his respect for the “Godfather of modern zombie fiction.”
I’ve never tried to hide how much inspiration Romero’s movies were to me for this series. I will always maintain there would be no Walking Dead without the godfather of the modern zombie. That said, I think this series is at least a slight innovation to the genre. … I felt evolving or changing our zombies in any way would have veered too close to his hallowed work.
—Robert Kirkman, Creator of The Walking Dead
The line between homage and iteration is thin. Kirkman’s approach intentionally limits changes to the basic zombie formula, resisting the urge to mutate the monsters beyond Romero’s model. Instead, he channels his innovation into character development and shifting perspectives, framing the true “villains” as fellow survivors rather than the undead themselves. This emphasis on human conflict, rather than terrifying monsters, distinguishes the franchise within its crowded genre, while still acknowledging its debt to Romero’s bleak vision.
While Walking Dead doesn’t directly infringe on copyright that Romero, in theory, could have claimed, it is clear the lack of legal obstacles allowed Kirkman and his collaborators to build a creative powerhouse using Romero’s foundation as a launchpad. Kirkman has even lightheartedly hinted at including visual cameos of Romero among the ravenous hordes populating the comic’s panels, a playful tribute to the influence that made the series possible.
Romero’s Response: Creative Frustration in a Changed Genre
Romero was hardly blind to The Walking Dead’s enormous popularity and impact on the genre he pioneered. In conversations before his death in 2017, Romero directly addressed the cultural and industry shift driven by the franchise‘s massive success, which radically changed the economics and expectations surrounding zombie storytelling. Interviewed by IndieWire, Romero lamented:
you couldn’t [make] a zombie film that had any sort of substance. It had to be a zombie film with just zombies wreaking havoc. That’s not what I’m about.
—George A. Romero, Director and Creator of Night of the Living Dead
He went further when outlining his struggles with industry perceptions after The Walking Dead and World War Z elevated zombie media to blockbuster status:
Now, because of “World War Z” and “The Walking Dead,” I can’t pitch a modest little zombie film, which is meant to be sociopolitical. I used to be able to pitch them on the basis of the zombie action, and I could hide the message inside that. Now, you can’t. The moment you mention the word “zombie,” it’s got to be, “Hey, Brad Pitt paid $400 million to do that.”
—George A. Romero, Director and Creator of Night of the Living Dead
Romero believed that the mainstreaming of zombies, transformed in part through the machinery behind The Walking Dead and Hollywood blockbusters, made it nearly impossible for him to continue making intimate, allegorical projects as he once did. With the zombie becoming a global commodity, subtlety and subtext were, in his view, pushed aside by spectacle and budgets.
Declining Involvement: When Romero Turned Down The Walking Dead
Despite being both the creative originator of the zombie apocalypse and an admired figure among The Walking Dead’s producers, George Romero declined offers to contribute directly to the franchise. Greg Nicotero, the show’s executive producer, revealed the team’s wish to have Romero direct an episode in the show’s earliest days:
You know, we loved the idea of George coming onboard. Frank Darabont and I talked about it after the end of season 1. And I had a conversation with George and I said, ‘Hey, man, would you ever want to come and direct?’ This was after we’d only aired six episodes. So, the show hadn’t really even caught on. And George said, ‘No, listen, you guys have your world, and I have my world’ and it’s cool. I think he really was still intending on developing some other zombie stuff.
—Greg Nicotero, Executive Producer of The Walking Dead
Romero’s polite refusal underscored his sense that while The Walking Dead’s world existed because of his own work, it represented a divergent path in zombie fiction—one less concerned with subtext and more with survival horror as entertainment. While the producers acknowledged and revered his achievements, Romero maintained distance, focused on what he saw as the core of his own creative mission.
The Debate Over Creative Debt: Homage, Innovation, or Appropriation?
There is no dispute that The Walking Dead would not have existed, at least in its present form, without the innovations of George A. Romero. Joe Hill’s pointed reminder of the franchise’s legal and creative inheritance, stemming from a failure in copyright maintenance, echoes a broader discomfort among creators and fans alike. The Walking Dead’s critical and commercial dominance may have reshaped the zombie subgenre forever, but its origin story is equal parts tribute, business calculation, and artistic borrowing.
During interviews and retrospectives, both Joe Hill and Robert Kirkman have spoken frankly about these issues. Hill’s critique is laden with emotional intensity, reflecting a sense of injustice or at least discomfort with how inspiration layered so closely atop an unprotected legacy can yield billion-dollar results. Kirkman, meanwhile, expresses steadfast respect for the work that came before, arguing that innovation comes not from changing the monster, but from evolving the context and humanity around it.
The debate is further complicated by the collaborative nature of horror fiction. Romero himself was influenced by earlier works, such as Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend, sparking a cycle of inspiration that moves from generation to generation. In the case of The Walking Dead, the lines may be blurrier than critics suggest, but the lineal descent—from Haitian folklore to Romero to Kirkman—is clear.
Legacy and Impact: The Future of the Walking Dead and the Romero Influence
The Walking Dead remains one of the most successful multimedia franchises birthed in the 21st century, expanding from its comic origins to include a sprawling list of spin-offs, international adaptations, video games, and novels. The characters—portrayed by actors such as Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, and Melissa McBride—have become cultural touchstones, while the franchise’s storylines continue to explore the themes of societal collapse and the resilience of human nature.
While the inspirational legacy of Stephen King hovers indirectly over The Walking Dead—filtered through both his son Joe Hill’s writings and the larger landscape of contemporary horror—the shadow of George A. Romero is far more explicit and inextricable. Whether through direct homage, accidental fortune, or creative reinterpretation, the influence of Night of the Living Dead stands as the blueprint for all that followed.
The Walking Dead’s creators are candid about this dynamic. Even as they innovate and branch the narrative in new directions, the source remains in plain sight. Joe Hill’s critique, flanked by Kirkman’s honest attributions and Romero’s own frustration, serves as a reminder of the complicated legacy of genre-defining works, the opportunities and pitfalls of public domain gaps, and the enduring resonance of the zombie apocalypse in pop culture.
Ultimately, The Walking Dead’s longevity and impact will always carry the imprint of both Stephen King’s narrative mastery and George A. Romero’s creative revolution—two visionaries who, through their own and their families’ works, continue to define what horror means to millions of fans worldwide.
