Once again the dead are walking the earth – especially the real estate around the San Diego Covention Center. Zombies are always a mainstay at Comic-Con and even though the popular sidebars Walker Stalker Fan Fest and the Walking Dead Escape at the Petco baseball stadium were scrapped this year, hideously disfigured brain-eaters are still among the most popular cosplay costumes. And the show largely responsible for their revival is front and center here. The Walking Dead (along with its spinoff Fear The Walking Dead) held panels for legions of appropriately frenzied fans. The cast of both shows stopped by  the HFPA lounge to talk about where they are headed and the reasons behind their amazing success. It was great as usual to chat with Andrew Lincoln, the man who in many ways started it all by headlining the original Robert Kirkman adaptation, when he came to see us at HFPA Comic-Con headquarters. We asked him about whether the dread and violence in TWD somehow reflects the current zeitgeist (as the films of George Romero once did): “The right way to show violence is to do it honestly. If you do it the other way it becomes gratuitous or camp or not real. What we attempt to do in our story is tell this crazy story but do it honestly.” “I don't know.  Does culture direct history or does history inform culture? You know, personally I think just entertaining that question is a compliment for a show like ours. Just trying to find metaphors is a compliment so thank you. I think obviously strange and  terrible things are  happening  in the world. Whether that’s more true today than it was one hundred years I don't know. Maybe we’re just more exposed to it. Having said that I think on the show we make a responsible use of violence, which is there to move plot and drama and is there to do just that. Ultimately it is a horror fantasy show…it has zombies in it."