In a discussion about connecting covers in comics, a Walking Dead fan noticed the trope in the collected editions of the popular zombie-apocalyptic series. All of the covers feature a line of zombies walking towards the viewer, with part of the zombies being cut to be featured on the issue’s cover. This lead to another fan, M. Ryan Murphy, to check if the last issue connects to the first, which were released a decade and a half apart. And they do connect!
While sharing his discovery, he tagged the original author, Robert Kirkman, to ask if he was the first to find out about this. To which Kirkman replied: “You may actually be the first to notice this. I was always wondering when someone would. Nice work!”
The Walking Dead was first released in 2003, and the final issue came out last year. It has spawned several television adaptations and many episodic video games, often sharing the same themes as the comics, but with different creative visions and stories. Telltale Games were one of the developers of the games, which had two episodes left in their series before they went bankrupt. However, Robert Kirkman then hired most of the laid off staff and bought the rights to the series, to be able to conclude it.