AMC is turning Robert Kirkman's zombie comic series, The Walking Dead, into a television series. Frank Darabont, writer/director of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist, is penning the adaptation and is also on board to direct. Seems Darabont has been pitching the concept to several outlets and AMC decided to pick up the pilot. If you call yourself a horror comic book fan this should be HUGE news and you'll want to read more.

Follow up:

Considered to be possibly the definitive zombie graphic novel, The Walking Dead was a black and white comic book series created by artist Tony Moore and writer Robert Kirkman in 2003. Since then the series has reached over 60 issues.

The Walking Dead revolves around a group of survivors, led by a small-town Kentucky police officer named Rick Grimes, who travel the country in search of a safe home. What makes this different than other zombie tales is the comic centers around the characters bringing more realism to the story.

Joel Stillverman, AMC's senior vp of programing, spoke to Variety saying, “This is not about zombies popping out of closets. This is a story about survival, and the dynamics of what happens when a group is forced to survive under these circumstances. The world is portrayed in a smart, sophisticated way.”

I think it's safe to say that most fans of the series would agree that there would be no way to turn this into a film. It just couldn't do the series justice and it would work much better as a TV series.