Re:Mix Lab’s ‘Walking Dead’ Panel Was The Super Nerdgasm You’d Expect It To Be

As the panel gave way to the Q&A session, Kirkman discussed changing plot lines from the comic to the TV show (“Wouldn’t it be neat to see if things happened this way?”), promised some startling special effects in Episode 4 this season, guaranteed that Season 2′s “crazy stuff” would be ratcheted up beyond where Season 1 went, and generally bantered and joked with Hardwicke. (For an idea of their repartee, you can listen to Kirkman’s appearance on Hardwicke’s Nerdist podcast.)

As you might expect from an audience of adoring fans, no one asked about Season 1′s plot or character hiccups, or how Season 2 opened by conveniently ignoring that the zombies are supposed to be attracted to sound, or the circumstances of showrunner Frank Darabont’s exit from the show this summer. Instead, a woman in the back stood up, announced that she didn’t have a question, and proceeded to tell Kirkman that she suffers from kinemortophobia, the fear of zombies, and that watching “The Walking Dead” has helped her get over her phobia. She then thanked Kirkman for helping her.

I can’t speak for anyone else in the audience, but I was all, “This broad is CRAZY.”

Kirkman, though, handled it with much more grace, sharing an anecdote about Book of Eli screenwriter Gary Whitta. Whitta, according to Kirkman, shares the same phobia, and got over it by serving as a zombie extra in the pilot of “The Walking Dead” last year. Here’s Kirkman with Whitta:

I still think that lady was batty as hell, though.