"The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman is talking about the transformation of his long-running comic book into an AMC television series helmed by Frank Darabont.

Kirkman, who will serve as executive producer on the series, sees Darabont ("The Mist," "The Green Mile") as the ideal person to shepherd his story, which poignantly documents a group of survivors attempting to make a life amidst a zombie apocalypse. Ten editions of "The Walking Dead" graphic novels have been published since 2003.

"When I heard that Darabont was interested in doing it a long, long time ago, I was just ecstatic," Kirkman said recently in an interview with MTV. "For me, 'The Walking Dead' is not necessarily a horror thing. It's not all about the shocks. It's about characters and all of that dramatic nonsense. And Darabont does that better than anybody.

"If you've seen 'The Shawshank Redemption' or 'The Mist,' you know he gets to the heart of the characters and shows them dealing with extremes. It's a match made in heaven."

For Kirkman, a key benefit of working with Darabont is trust.

"I don't need to look over his shoulder," Kirkman said. "Frank understands the material 100 percent. ... I'm really excited about it, because from my discussions with Frank, he likes the right things about 'Walking Dead.'"

But how will the TV series reflect the comics; will it deviate from Kirkman's story arcs?

"I've told Frank flat-out that I do not want him to follow the comic to the detriment of the show," he explained. "I encourage him to veer off if he has something that will work really well on TV that wouldn't work in a comic. I don't want people who enjoy the comic to be watching the TV show and going, 'Oh, this is leading to that one thing I already know about from the comic.'

"I think it will be 100-percent true to the tone of the series, but at the same time it will be an entertaining, secondary way of experiencing 'The Walking Dead' in a completely different light, so I'm excited."

One concern that has surfaced is AMC's ability to keep a sharp edge to the series due to the story's grisly content. But Kirkman sees no need to worry.

"I just had a meeting with a bunch of the executives at AMC, and Darabont, and Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert at Circle of Confusion, and the executives were talking to Darabont about his script and they said, 'You can't use the F-word.' That was the only limitation they gave him. We were all stunned.

"The thing is, you don't necessarily have to see everything that's going on, and sometimes things are even more horrific when you don't see the goriest parts."

See more of Kirkman's interview at MTV.