Robert Kirkman is kind of a big deal. When you create and executive produce AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” a cable show that pulls in 12.4 million viewers – and you’ve helped transform zombies from low-budget genre fare into commercially viable monsters – well, let’s just say Hollywood picks up the phone when you call.

Still, Robert Kirkman is a comic book guy. Sure, he’s probably one of the most successful comic book guys out there right now, but he continues to actually create. He maintains writing duties on “The Walking Dead” comic, “Invincible,” “Thief of Thieves” and “Super Dinosaur,” and he shows up at cons to sign and meet with fans.

This was the Robert Kirkman I wanted to talk to: the guy I interviewed for the first time a few years back, before Andrew Lincoln encountered the little zombie girl with a teddy bear and bunny slippers. In a brief sit down at his company's Skybound booth at San Diego Comic-Con, we chatted about the weird business of TV adaptation, but mainly focused on keeping his many comic book universes separate.

MTV Geek: How will “Thief of Thieves” the comic be impacted, if at all, by AMC's adaptation into a TV show? Are you setting aside some ideas for each medium?

Robert Kirkman: No, not at all. It’s actually very important to me to kind of ignore whatever’s happening in television with “Thief of Thieves” – and “The Walking Dead.” I don’t want it to ever influence anything. I think a good example of that is the new character Ezekiel with a tiger that’s been introduced in “The Walking Dead.” He has a tiger for a pet. That’s going to be difficult to do on the show. I’m never going to go, “Ah well, it’s going to be hard to put a tiger in the show long term so I should probably not have this tiger in the comic.” No, I’m not going to do that. I’m telling a story and want to tell a specific story. Same for “Thief of Thieves.” We’re working together, doing the best on it that we can. If it does end up making it to series, and getting on air, they’ll just adapt it – or they won’t. I’m very malleable with how they try to tell things; we just try to tell the best possible story and move on.

Geek: As a creator, you managed to create a universe in the comics and then on TV while staying true to the spirit of the source material. And you’ve remained involved with both. Do you think that has influenced other creators?

Kirkman: I don’t know. Maybe. It has to have been done before. There’s been some fantastic “Star Wars” comics and books, and that kind of stuff. And the movies are great. But I don’t know. It’s a lot of fun being able to play in the two different mediums, and have the audience be invested equally in the show, comic, video game and novel series. But I don’t know.

Geek: The comic book worlds of “The Walking Dead,” “Super Dinosaur,” “Thief of Thieves” and “Invincible” are all pretty unique. Which tends to be the most satisfying to play in?

Kirkman: It changes anytime I’m working on anything. Sometimes I’m in the mood for “Invincible,” sometimes I’m in the mood for “The Walking Dead.” Because I’m doing so much, it’s good that I can get really invested in “Invincible” when I’m working on that, and get invested in “The Walking Dead.” None of them stand above the other. But for “Invincible,” in particular, I just love super heroes and think there is a lot of good story potential in those kinds of stories. I love being able to mine that in new and interesting ways every month. It is a lot of fun.

Geek: You have put your “Walking Dead” characters through an exceptional amount of pain and suffering -- last year's issue #100 caused so much fan reaction, as I remember it. So do you ever find yourself wanting to hurt your characters from other books in the same way?

Kirkman: I think a lot of bad things happen to the characters in “Invincible.” That’s just storytelling. If everyone is just happy and everything’s going well, you’re not telling a story; you’re just showing life. So I keep them completely separate, and that doesn’t bleed over. There’s never really an urge of, “You know, more people die in ‘The Walking Dead’ than ‘Invincible’ so I should kill more people in ‘Invincible.’” That doesn’t really come into play. It is almost like these little universes exist and I am just kind of peeking in and going, “Oh, I’m going to tell this story now, and this story now.” It’s never a matter of having ideas for “this” that can go for “that.” It is all very separate for me somehow.

Geek: When I first interviewed you a few years back, it was before “The Walking Dead” show and you said you hadn’t read Max Brooks’ “The Zombie Survival Guide” or “World War Z” because you were afraid of getting ideas from him. Have you since changed that approach?

Kirkman: I’ve seen Max a few times but we’ve never actually sat down and had a conversation of any length, but every now and then I’ll be signing at a convention and he’ll pop in and say something to me. But I still haven’t read “World War Z” or “The Zombie Survival Guide” just because, you know, it seems like a very far-reaching road map for that universe and I feel like there would be too many parallels. I did see the movie though because I love Brad Pitt and he’s handsome in it. It was a good movie, but I try stay away from anything that’s going to influence me too much.