Final Rest: Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore Settle Walking Dead Lawsuit

There is nothing more heartwarming in this world than seeing a childhood friendship grow into adulthood, turn into a productive working relationship, lead to an amicable parting of the ways as one friend pursues his dreams of producing professional comics work for page rates while the other turns their mutual prior work into a license to print money, then meet again in a Federal courtroom with mutual exclamations of affection like “[You are] a proud liar and fraudster,” and “[Your] lawsuit is ridiculous,” all before concluding in that most beautiful of Hollywood of endings: with one friend writing a check so the other can feel free to fuck off and die.

Or, in other words: Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore have settled their lawsuit over profits from and ownership over The Walking Dead.

…The Dead Will Seek A Cut: Tony Moore Sues Robert Kirkman Over The Walking Dead

UPDATE, 2/11/2012, 12:30ish: Robert Kirkman’s calling the lawsuit bullshit (Well, he said, “ridiculous,” but my word’s better), saying that his contract with Moore gives Moore 60 percent of the net on The Walking Dead comics and 20 percent of the net on the TV show, and that Moore’s been paid accordingly. Now, as you can see in the conversation in the comments, generally a percentage of the net in Hollywood usually falls somewhere between jack and shit, but it, and Kirkman’s assertion that both he and Moore had lawyers when they made the deal, clarifies the situation a little bit. (Update via Comic Book Resources)

There are reasons why my default answer to nearly any question is: “I’m not answering any Goddamned questions without my lawyer here,” and here is a prime example:

Robert Kirkman, the famed comic book writer who helped create AMC’s hit zombie series The Walking Dead, has been sued by a childhood friend and collaborator who claims he is entitled to as much as half the proceeds from the lucrative franchise.

If you’re only a fan of the AMC Walking Dead television show and not as familiar with the comic, I won’t even tell you to fuck off to some other comics Web site, but I will acknowledge that you might be responding to this news with a resounding, “…who?”

Tony Moore was a longtime collaborator of Kirkman’s, doing art on early Kirkman-written indie comics like Battle Pope and Brit. Moore also did the art on the first six issues of The Walking Dead before being replaced by still-current artist Charlie Adlard, and Moore continued to do Walking Dead covers for another 18 issues before leaving completely to work on books for Vertigo and Marvel. Kirkman has implied that Moore went off the book because he was late… now I’m inferring that Moore’s position is that he was “late” because Kirkman fucked him without contraception.