Skybound Entertainment and Image Comics have revealed artist Mateus Santolouco’s connecting variant covers for The Walking Dead Deluxe #79-84.
Written by Robert Kirkman, illustrated by Charlie Adlard, and colored by Dave McCaig, issues #79-84 of The Walking Dead Deluxe cover the “No Way Out” arc of the original series. To mark the occasion, Santolouco has teamed with colorist Marcelo Maiolo for a six-part connecting variant cover series showing some of TWD‘s most iconic characters in a battle against a horde of walkers. Things kick off when The Walking Dead Deluxe #79 hits comic shops later this month.
Check out Mateus Santolouco’s connecting variant covers for The Walking Dead Deluxe #79-84 below:
The Walking Dead Deluxe re-presents TWD in full color
Written by Kirkman and illustrated by Tony Moore and Adlard, The Walking Dead ran for 193 issues from 2003 to 2019. The post-apocalyptic comic book series was originally presented in black and white. However, in 2020, Image and Skybound launched The Walking Dead Deluxe, which seeks to reprint the entire series in full color. TWD Deluxe also features “pinups and exclusive ‘Cutting Room Floor’ commentary by Kirkman, celebrating the secret history of the series.”
Of course, the legacy of TWD goes well beyond comics at this point. A television adaptation of The Walking Dead premiered on AMC in 2010, running for 11 seasons through 2022. Its first spin-off series, Fear the Walking Dead, ran for eight seasons from 2015 to 2023. Its second spin-off, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, was a two-season limited series that ran from 2020 to 2021. An anthology limited series title Tales of the Walking Dead aired in 2022.
That’s far from the end of it, however, as AMC continues to build out The Walking Dead Universe. The Walking Dead: Dead City — the first spin-off to premiere after the mothership series ended — hit the airwaves earlier this year. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon followed suit a few months later. Both series have been renewed for second seasons.
Meanwhile, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is due to premiere on AMC in February 2024. The project began life as a trilogy of Walking Dead feature films before eventually being reworked into a television series.
The Walking Dead Deluxe #79 goes on sale Wednesday, December 20 from Image Comics.
