Last week, we brought you the news that McFarlane Toys had picked up the license to produce action figures based on "The Walking Dead" television series and comic books. We also gave you an exclusive peek at the prototype for the Michonne figure set to be released in the first wave of "The Walking Dead" toys.
During this weekend's Toy Fair 2011 convention, MTV News chatted up McFarlane Toys founder Todd McFarlane — no stranger to comics himself — to get more details about "The Walking Dead" line.
"['The Walking Dead'] was a giant success for AMC," McFarlane told MTV News. "To me, 'The Walking Dead' has been in my life for years and years and years, because we've been doing the comic books [at Image Comics]."
"I convinced Robert [Kirkman] to give me the comic book property license and AMC to give [the show license] to me, so you wouldn't have two guys in the marketplace battling it out and sending mixed messages to consumers," he explained of his company's unique hold on both major licenses for the property. "It also allows one company to use the entire library of both the comic books and the TV show, so you can then draw it out and make it a 365-day program."
McFarlane reiterated the scheduling specs for the "The Walking Dead" toy line that were released last week, indicating that the first wave of four figures would arrive on shelves around September — "just when the second season launches" — and the second wave would arrive around November, closer to Christmas.
"Each zombie is going to have a sort of pull-apart, fun thing," he revealed. "When you buy it, it will be sort of mom-approved, if you will, [sort of] PG-13, but as soon as you get home there will be some really cool stuff that you can do with it. There's going to be guts in the cavities that you can pull out, and when mom comes, you can put it back together and she'll never be the wiser."
McFarlane also indicated that he'll have some lead time when it comes to knowing which characters will be making the jump from page to screen, and which television-only characters will be getting a bigger share of the spotlight.
"Robert's going to be doing a lot of writing . . . because they're going to put him right in the middle of the show," he said. "So I have a back door to information. [He's] going to have to tell me [story elements] in advance so I can put that into production and we can get it into the marketplace in a timely fashion. So I now have an in with both that show and the comic books."
After checking out our interview with McFarlane above, go ahead and feast your eyes on an image of the "Officer Rick Grimes" figure from Series 1 of "The Walking Dead" toy line below:
Series 1 of McFarlane Toys' "The Walking Dead" line hits shelves in September. For some background on "The Walking Dead" comic, be sure to check out MTV Geek.
What do you think of McFarlane's "The Walking Dead" toys? Let us know in the comment section or on Twitter! You can also follow me, Splash Page editor Rick Marshall, on Twitter!