Comic-Con 2015: FEAR THE WALKING DEAD Interviews with Greg Nicotero and Dave Erickson

Closing out our coverage from Comic-Con, I have highlights from my interview session for Fear The Walking Dead. We're nearly a month away until the new series premieres and showrunner Dave Erickson clarifies how the timeline of the show fits into The Walking Dead, while Greg Nicotero confirms an expanded episode order for Season 2:

Makeup effects master and Executive Producer Greg Nicotero talks about growing up on zombie movies:

"When I grew up it was Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. I loved zombie movies and I went to the theater, and I saw every single one of them. I snuck in and saw them. With The Walking Dead, we have 75 hours to tell a story. Now with Fear The Walking Dead, we have our first season of six hours, and you get to learn about these characters and you get to get into them. It's not just a movie where it's two hours and they're gone, so we learn nuances about these people and who they are, so you will find something to identify with in certain characters."

Greg Nicotero compares the walker effects we'll see in the first season to what we saw in Night of the Living Dead:

"It sort of in the infancy of happening, so it's more like the opening scene of the Night of the Living Dead, where you see the guy walking through the cemetery. You're like, "Excuse me sir," and then he turns and attacks. It's sort of more that kind of suspense. On Fear The Walking Dead, the world is evolving with us as opposed to us being ahead of it at the start of The Walking Dead."

Showrunner Dave Erickson give us a better idea of how the timeline on Fear The Walking Dead fits in with Rick's coma on The Walking Dead:

"Robert [Kirkman] always said that Rick's coma was probably four to five weeks, because I think in his mind that was enough time for the fabric of society to crumble. We're living loosely in that time frame and if you track season one, we maybe cover three weeks. We've structured the season in such a way that, without giving too much away, there's still a process of discovery to be had once the season ends.

A big difference between the two shows is how people react to the threat of walkers, according to Dave Erickson:

"They look, for all intents and purposes, human. Your instinct is not going to be, "That's a zombie, I have to kill it!" It's going to be, "That's my neighbor, that's my friend, that's my colleague who I had coffee with yesterday and something's wrong with them, I want to help them. I'm gonna call 911. I can't get 911 because the circuits are busy".

It becomes this process of discovery. And then when you actually do have to do violence to someone to protect yourself, to protect your family, and you do have to kill, there's an emotional toll, there's a psychological toll."

While AMC hasn't said two much about Season 2 of Fear The Walking Dead, beyond the fact that they've already committed to it, Greg Nicotero did have some additional details on filming and an expanded episode count:

"We'll start shooting the first of fifteen episodes for season two sometime in November or December, so I think the plan is to have a zombie TV show on 52 weeks a year. In The Walking Dead we had six episodes for our first season and I think we did twelve or thirteen in our second season."

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With an August 23rd premiere date set, we'll have much more on Fear The Walking Dead over the next month. Until then, catch up on our recent coverage:

• Fear The Walking Dead Photo Gallery
• Interviews
• Comic-Con Trailer
• Comic-Con Panel