Robert Kirkman PaleyfestThe Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman will be running things for the spin-off, too

It’s incredibly ambitious to order a spin-off when the main show is on top of its game - season five premieres this weekend, and it has already been renewed for season six. Is there any chance that the new show can turn out to be a total dud? Take a look at Pretty Little Liars: the big time ABC Family teen drama tried their luck with a spin-off in the same universe by the name of Ravenswood. It only lasted a sad ten episodes before it was axed by the network for low ratings. If TWD prequel turns out completely awful, it might just put an ugly stain on the show’s legacy.

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However, the difference between The Walking Dead and Pretty Little Liars is not only the fact that one show has zombies that eat people’s faces, but that The Walking Dead has a world that’s incredibly rich with lore, and its got a huge potential for exploration. The Walking Dead comic book is 132 issues and eleven years deep into production, and while the show shares similarities to it, there are plenties of roads the comic has gone down that the show has never touched. But one of the coolest additions to the The Walking Dead universe is its video game. Developed by Telltale Games, The Walking Dead has been made into an episodic graphic-novel-like adventure game, with a story that’s absolutely brilliant. Its got its own set of characters with the same amount of TWD’s show’s drama, and Kirkman has been offering his insight for the title that just wrapped up its second season.

I guess the moral of the story is: as long as Kirkman is involved, it’s bound to be a success. Luckily, he’ll be involved just as much as he is with its main counterpart, along with co-writer and executive producer Dave Erickson. It’s natural to be skeptical of something that appears to only be striking while the iron’s hot, but the network appears to have full intention on not diminishing The Walking Dead’s name. “We’ll take our time, and we’ll do it right,” network chief of AMC Chris Collier told Vulture. The Walking Dead spin-off is expected to give us a scare sometime in 2015, but for now, we can breathe easy knowing the production is in good hands.