Production is scheduled to begin very soon on The Walking Dead's highly anticipated spinoff entitled The Walking Dead Companion Series: Cobalt. Kim Dickens has already been set as the lead, a guidance counselor with two children and a dark past, with Cliff Curtis playing the male lead as her love interest, a divorced teacher. We reported last month that the series will be set in Los Angeles, but there is still much we don't know about the series as a whole. Entertainment Weekly caught up with series co-creator Robert Kirkman, who revealed that the show is about a type of family that the original Walking Dead hasn't explored before, adding that the spinoff will be "startlingly different" from its predecessor.

"I will say that this is going to be a show about family. But it's going to be a show about a different type of family that we haven't explored in The Walking Dead thus far. So what we're trying to do with The Walking Dead spinoff is keep the story as familiar as possible for people that love The Walking Dead, so you'll get the kind of things that you expect from a Walking Dead story. But, at the same time, we'll want to tell these stories in a completely different way with completely different people in a completely different setting that's going to make for a fundamentally different show. I think the look and feel of The Walking Dead spinoff is going to be startlingly different."

Robert Kirkman also added that Cobalt stands on its own, and fans don't need to be caught up with the original series to follow the spin-off.

"We want it to be a new show that can stand on its own. You could watch The Walking Dead spinoff if you've never watched an episode of The Walking Dead and get a really great, rich, fulfilling experience out of it. It has to be a show that can stand on its own. I think that's what we've accomplished, and we start filming in a couple of days. I'm really excited."

He also confirmed that Cobalt won't feature any of the characters from the comic book, addressing why the show is set in Los Angeles, completely on the other side of the country from The Walking Dead survivors.

"It's Los Angeles. It's a corner of the world that we have never explored in the comic book series. So, theoretically, something like this could be happening in Los Angeles in the comic book series, but we don't show you this area of the country in the comic book series. So it fits within that world, but it is all new characters, all new events and all kinds of crazy stuff."

What do you think of these new details? Chime in with your thoughts below. AMC hasn't issued a premiere date for Cobalt yet, but The Walking Dead returns with the back half of Season 5 on Sunday, February 8.