The Walking Dead Clementine author Tillie Walden shares her "surprisingly hopeful" outlook on life

Is there a bright side to an apocalypse? That's a question I found myself asking after talking with cartoonist Tillie Walden about her upcoming book Clementine Book One, the first in a three-part graphic novel trilogy set in the world of The Walking Dead.

Walden is best known as the singular writer/artist behind a string of subtly insightful creator-owned graphic novels like such as Spinning and On a Sunbeam. "Sad gays" and "Dreamy gay space stuff" as she described it to me. But with Clementine Book One, she's entering the daunting world of zombies - and a franchise that grown to be more than just a little indie comic by two Kentucky boys named Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. It's grown up, and it's grown big - becoming the cornerstone of Image Comics, a hit TV (and soon to be movie) franchise, and even a popular video game series.

In talking with Walden in her secluded home in Vermont however, I've discovered disaster prep can have its benefits. When you immerse yourself into a multi-year project based on zombies and survival, it can help someone re-assess what's truly important in the larger scheme of things - to take time for special moments, and also to not take yourself too seriously.

As Professor Tillie Walden tells her students at the Center for Cartoon Studies (and now me), "It's also just ink on paper."

What follows is an hour-long conversation with Walden about the upcoming zombie trilogy, what she's learned in the course of making it, and also what makes now the right time to change from being an 'indie darling' into comics' next big author.

Popverse: My first question is the easy one, Tillie. What are you working on today? Feel free to be as detailed or as general as you want… or mysterious?

Tillie Walden: I cannot describe what exactly I was drawing, but I was downstairs. Normally I work in this room that we're talking in, but it's really hot in Vermont already. So, I was downstairs where it's a little cooler. We're penciling digitally chapter six of Clementine Book Two; chapter six of eight, so right at the meat of a lot going on in the story.

I was just trying to figure out some very important dialogue while also drawing a lot of blood everywhere, but I can't… You know, I can't say much about Book Two.

What’s your process like?

I've been in the midst of drafting out the book, and then once the pencils are done, I'll print them out as blue lines and ink it traditionally. I'm looking forward to the point when I can be, like, really drawing with pens.

I don't normally pencil digitally, but because Clementine is on a pretty tight schedule that’s what we’re doing.