Now that "The Walking Dead" is a bonafide hit, there is a lot of talk about where the show is going to go. The man who first brought the characters to life in his comic book, Robert Kirkman has said the story is supposed to be about Rick Grimes and his son Carl. If that is indeed going to be the case, just how old is Carl, really?

Carl Grimes might be a pre-teen?

It might seem like a relatively small detail in the world of "The Walking Dead" but the show has clearly attempted to make this story one that is plenty realistic. If we're really going to buy into that realism, we're going to have to figure out just what age Carl is as the series progresses.

This is always difficult when it comes to child actors. Most of the time, there isn't supposed to be as much time passing in the series as there is in the real world.

The "Walking Dead" actor who plays Carl in the series, Chandler Riggs has gone through quite a change in appearance since he first got on the show. When the show first kicked off, Riggs looked plenty young, in the six years plus since the debut he's turned into someone who is ready to head off to college off screen. In the comics, Kirkman has said Carl is around 11 or 12.

No one can agree on Carl's age

The really interesting thing, according to Uproxx, is the people who work on "The Walking Dead" can't even totally agree on just how old Carl really is.

The comic book editor Sean Mackiewicz recently commented on the fact that he and Kirkman don't agree on the age of Carl. The editor says Kirkman made it clear Carl was seven-years-old when the comic series began. Unfortunately there was a time jump between issue 126 and 127 and that has made it impossible to determine how old the character is supposed to be.

Kirkman has never made it clear how many years have passed in the comic book version of "The Walking Dead." While Carl has changed in appearance, it's impossible to tell whether he's in his teens, or still a pre-teen. Chandler Riggs appears to be a 17 or 18-year-old kid in the television version, but it's possible that he's a young child who looks old. It seems likely we're never going to have a definitive answer to this question.