It's fair to say that, in an otherwise uncertain world, the omens are good for Frank Darabont's forthcoming television adaptation, The Walking Dead. The footage we've seen thus far feels more like the promo material for a big screen horror feature than a six-part TV series, and all of it simply oozes with style.

Just look at the moment, in the Comic-Con trailer, where lead actor Andrew Lincoln clambers into the safety of an Abrams tank. The camera cranes up, and we see a brief aerial shot of the vehicle from above as it's smothered by a zombie horde. Brilliant.

It now appears that US network AMC likes what it sees too, since it's taken the unusual step of commissioning a second season of The Walking Dead before the first has even appeared on TV.

According to Fangoria (whose news comes to us via Empire), the show has been officially picked up a further 13 episodes, with filming scheduled to commence next February. There are also suggestions that the next season of Walking Dead could be set in the depths of winter, as opposed to the scorching summer heat of the first six episodes, a change of scenery that has its origins in the comic's second volume.

"It would be great not just to get out of the heat, but to present a different idea to the audience visually and tonally by having it be winter," Darabont said. "There's some really cool stuff that Kirkman did, where they find the one zombie that's frozen to the ground. I'd never seen that before and that's really cool."

The first season of The Walking Dead is scheduled to premiere on 31 October in the US, and an unspecified date in November in the UK on FX UK.

Empire