Last week McFarlane Toys hit us with a double whammy when announcing they would be producing toys for Robert Kirkman’s ‘The Walking Dead’ comic book series and AMC’s hugely successful television adaptation of said comic.
The first series of figures based on ‘The Walking Dead’ comic book include Officer Rick Grimes, Michonne, a Zombie Lurker and a Zombie Roamer. All four are on display at Toy Fair and viewable below, though Michonne and the Zombie Roamer have yet to be articulated and painted. You can clearly Michonne she comes with at least a sword and power drill accessories. These figures will arrive in stores in September
The second series of figures will drawn inspiration from AMC’s series and include Deputy Rick Grimes, Daryl Dixon and the more distinctive Zombie Walker and Zombie Biter characters. They’ll invade stores in November to tie into ‘The Walking Dead’s’ second season premiere on AMC. You can get an idea what each of these will look like from MacFarlane’s teaser image featuring photos of each character from the show.
In an interview with FearNet conducted at Toy Fair, Executive Director of Public Relations at the McFarlane Companies Carmen Bryant revealed that they have been working on figures for ‘The Walking Dead’ since 2010 but only acquired the rights to distribute them approximately a week ago. The comic in particular has been on Todd MaFarlane’s radar for some time so it made a lot of sense to pursue an action figure line when the television show took off last fall.
Bryant said the first wave of figures from the television show are all hand-sculpted based on reference photos. For the second wave forward they hope do to full-body scans of not only the actors but the props as well to achieve the most accurate plastic depiction of ‘The Walking Dead’ as possible.
A special surprise will be revealed with the second series that puts the zombie gore “inside” the figure. This feature will allow the Zombie figures to be pulled apart so you can see their guts aside. Whereas in the comic line of figures you’re more likely to see bones and the inside protruding out as they’re drawn.
The good news is retailer interest in ‘The Walking Dead’ figures has been “huge” thus far so the future of the alternating comic book and television show-inspired action figure line is bright, even if the Zombie apocalypse world’s future they live in isn’t.
