The Walking Dead companion series in development

Last week we heard that AMC had secured the rights to the proposed Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul, and now the network has announced that it is in development on a "companion series" to its hit zombie show The Walking Dead, which AMC Studios is producing alongside Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert.

"After 10 years of writing the comic book series and being so close to the debut of our fourth, and in my opinion, best season of the TV series, I couldn't be more thrilled about getting the chance to create a new corner of The Walking Dead universe," said comic book creator Kirkman. "The opportunity to make a show that isn't tethered by the events of the comic book, and is truly a blank page, has set my creativity racing."

The Walking Dead spin-off is planned for 2015, while TWD itself is set to return to AMC on October 13th.