Zombob's Zombie News and Reviews

Kirkman, Moore Settle 'The Walking Dead' Legal Battles

After seven months and three lawsuits, the legal battles between the original creative team on The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, are over. The two released a joint statement yesterday announcing that the conflict over ownership of the properties they worked on together has been settled ahead of trial.

The statement - released to multiple news outlets including the Hollywood Reporter, reads, simply,

Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore are pleased to jointly announce that they have reached an amicable agreement in their respective lawsuits and all parties have settled the entire matter to everyone's mutual satisfaction. Neither side will be discussing any details but will instead happily and productively spend their time focused on their own work and move on in their lives.

Moore had initially filed legal papers against Kirkman in February of this year, alleging that the writer had unfairly and untruthfully led him to hand out his share of copyright in The Walking Dead to Kirkman's company in exchange for a share in the profits that he had also never received. That was followed in August by a second lawsuit, in which Moore asked for legal declaration that he was the co-creator not only of The Walking Dead, but also other collaborations with Kirkman including Brit, Battle Pope and the unpublished Dead Planet and My Name is Abraham (That second lawsuit included the now-famous declaration that Kirkman was "a proud liar and fraudster who freely admits that he has no qualm about misrepresenting material facts in order to consummate business transactions").

For Kirkman's part, he countersued the artist, claiming that Moore had been overcompensated for his work, and should therefore reimburse Kirkman for the overage, in addition to paying damages for Moore breaching the confidentiality of the original, disputed agreement.

As the statement says, the details of the settlement will not be made public, and so we may never know quite what concessions either side made in order to bring this to a, if not happy, then at least not entirely ugly ending. Eagle-eyed readers may want to keep an eye on the indicia of the future issues of The Walking Dead comic - or the credits of The Walking Dead TV show, due back soon - in order to see if any change in ownership appears.




~ComicsAlliance.com.