lives, he’s become more of a fascinating character. I think those who wanted him to be killed in ‘All Out War’ have flipped to the opposite. He’s the villain turned anti-hero. You still can’t completely trust him, but you do believe he could be a positive force in society. I don’t think many of us would have ever guessed Negan would have become a source of wisdom for Rick. It’s a major thread that continues through the next arc. Issue 163 coincided with the 25th anniversary of Image Comics so you guys decided to release it, and two other Kirkman titles, for 25 cents each which is unheard of in the business. How did that come about? We always forecast the upcoming year and we realized that February [2017] would be the month that would coincide with the new arc. We don’t do event stories but ‘The Whisperer War’ was sort of billed as an event within The Walking Dead. Issue 163 felt like a place to go back to basics. And we have never done a 25-cent issue for The Walking Dead. The 25th anniversary and 25 cents all clicked into place. Once we realized Invincible would be coming back that month to start the end of its final 12 issues, and also Outcast was celebrating its 25th issue on the 25th anniversary, it all aligned perfectly. We decided to do 25 cents across the line to celebrate this company that has changed our lives as readers and collaborators.
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You sold 730,000 copies for The Walking Dead 163 making it the biggest selling issue ever! Did you ever fathom reaching those kinds of numbers so deep into the book’s run? We were always ambitious, and hoped it would be the bestselling issue of The Walking Dead to date, because we use it as a sales tool and a place to ‘onboard’ customers who have been reading through trades or just catching up. Twenty-five cents is a small ask for new readers to try something out and sample, especially when they are accustomed to paying four dollars these days. It was really the support of retailers, some of whom increased their orders exponentially, just because they realized that if one person orders that issue and goes on to buy one trade paperback, that is a huge earn for them.
THE WALKING DEAD
That issue also had an expanded pagecount, didn’t it? Yes. During planning we didn’t intend for it to be 28 pages but the story was back-to-basics Rick and Alexandria versus a horde of walkers, so we felt we could use the room to expand that level of threat. The horde coming to get Alexandria has been teased for awhile. Yeah, Robert introduced the horde at the end of issue 143 where Alpha shows it to Rick. I think we all knew it would get unleashed at some point, but choosing