The Walking Dead Season 7: Robert Kirkman talks about Shiva
By Susie Graham
Season 7 of The Walking Dead will bring more larger than life character than just Negan. Robert Kirkman also wrote a tiger named Shiva.
Negan has Lucille and King Ezekiel has Shiva. Season 7 will bring quite a bit of eccentricity with its new and engaging characters. That’s really nothing new. Characters in The Walking Dead have always had that pinch of comic book quirk to them.
Shiva just brings with her the added challenge of bringing her to the screen without making her look unrealistic and taking you out of the scene. The walkers, Abraham’s mustache, explosions–they’ve all been done so well, they are still grounded enough in reality that The Walking Dead stays the story it is.
that’s probably the wildest swing I took in the comics.
Robert Kirkman talked to Entertainment Weekly about the importance of making Shiva look good on screen and how he even thought about how it would be a challenge when he started writing her.
"Yeah, I mean, you have to get it right. You can’t have a fake tiger, because you know that’s not going to work. This is a very real world and if Shiva doesn’t walk on screen, and look like this amazing real tiger that’s existing amongst these characters, it’s going to be more farfetched than it is in and of itself. So you really have to sell it. You really have to have this deadly, terrifying creature coexisting with these people, and it has been a Herculean task to make sure that we get it right. But between the mastery of Greg Nicotero, and all the practical effects that he’s able to accomplish, and our crack visual effects team, I’m very happy with how it’s turning out. You can see in the trailer, it absolutely looks amazing. You wouldn’t, you know, think we had a real tiger on set, but thankfully we don’t or else I would never go to set again."
I hadn’t really thought about the fact that at some point when Robert Kirkman was writing the comics he was writing them at the same time as the show was on the air so he was aware that what he was writing would some day possibly get adapted to the screen.
Hell yeah, let’s see how we handle this tiger in the show! ~Robert Kirkman
Well, we’re going to see in just a few weeks. Season 7 begins on October 23rd. We will see how Negan changes the direction of the show, but we will also be introduced to King Ezekiel, Shiva and the Kingdom.