Highlighting The Walking Dead’s Season 6 Walkers: Swamp Thing Walker
By Susie Graham
Season 6 of The Walking Dead featured herds of walkers, but there were some that stood out. Let’s look at some of these. Meet Swamp Thing Walker.
Swamp Thing Walker. This walker goes by a few names. Swamp Thing Walker. Cherokee Rose Walker. Wrightson Walker. He’s a double tribute walker.
In the special feature for the DVD, Greg Nicotero said that the script described him as Wrightson. He let on that when he read that, he knew exactly what that meant.
"There’s a fantasy illustrator comic book artist extraordinaire named Bernie Wrightson who pioneered the zombie drawing art form back in the 70s and 80s. He has a very distinct style.The nose is always gone and there’s always that skull hole. The area from the ribcage to the pelvis is always diminished."
Greg took to Instagram at the time the episode aired to post a Swamp Thing drawing and 2 photos of Stephen Vining in the John Wheaton design by his KNB team and make up by the amazing Kevin Wasner, who does many of the walker make-ups and is spoken of very highly by the walker actors.
We can see how they used the blue and green to take away parts of the abdomen and the nose.
Related Story: A closer look at the Cherokee rose legend
At some point, Nicotero decided to add a second tribute to the Wrightson Walker by including some Cherokee roses in the mossy body.
This walker came out of the woods during the time Daryl had been kidnapped by Dwight and his little gang. Daryl had to quickly fumble through his bag and finally found his crossbow to take down the mossy guy.
It was a great time to add the nod to the Cherokee rose. He had used it to offer Carol hope when Sophia was lost and now the dead walker offered Daryl some hope in this dire situation.
The rose was blooming from something that was harsh and sad. Daryl needed to be reminded that he could bloom in this world that was also harsh and sad.