The Walking Dead artist fundraises for Shrewsbury art centre

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Comic book artist Charlie Adlard is best known for his work on The Walking Dead

BBC A man in a black leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath holds up a black and white sketch of a zombie's head. He is sat at a table which is covered in comic books and art — Comic book artist Charlie Adlard is best known for his work on The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead illustrator Charlie Adlard has created a new book to raise money to save his local arts centre.

The book of sketches, titled Coffee Shop, has drawings from three cafes in his hometown of Shrewsbury.

All proceeds will go to The Hive, which has been under threat of closure due to increasing bills and difficulty obtaining national funding.

“I think art centres like this are really important because obviously they’re part of the community and there’s a lot of people that without somewhere like the Hive haven’t got access to anything like this,” Mr Adlard said.

“Guess what, it’s not a comic book,” Mr Adlard said about Coffee Shop.

“I thought it’d be a really good thing this year to just get back to drawing and I like coffee as well so I thought I’d combine two of my favourite things.”

The book consists of portrait sketches of local people in the cafes as well as scenery and poetry.

Mr Adlard worked on the comic book The Walking Dead for 16 years, as well as comics such as Judge Dredd and The X-Files.

The Walking Dead was turned into a TV series in 2010 and ran for 11 seasons.

The Hive is a charity that has been operating for over 19 years

The outside of a brown brick building with a blue door. It has a blue sign hanging above the door that says "The Hive", there is a similar sign on the left side of the door — The Hive is a charity that has been operating for over 19 years

Mr Adlard sat in three local coffee shops, Csons, The Coffee House and The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse to draw the book.

All proceeds from the book and any subsequent artwork will go directly to the Save The Hive Campaign.

“I’ve been associated with [The Hive] for a long, long time. I used to come here and life draw for starters so I knew the space, I knew what it did,” Mr Adlard said.

Katie Jennings said she was bowled over by the support for the campaign

A woman wearing a grey top with a leaf pattern on it. She is standing against a white wall in what appears to be an office, above her right shoulder a poster that says Save The Hive is hanging on the wall — Katie Jennings said she was bowled over by the support for the campaign

The Hive is an independent charity that offers art and wellbeing support to more than 50,000 young people.

“We are a port in a storm for children who need this space. They have a safe and welcoming space, they can come here they can be creative, they can be themselves,” said Katie Jennings, CEO of The Hive.

The arts hub launched the campaign two months ago with an aim of raising £50,000.

“We got to a point where we were really facing closure and had to ask for the help of our local communities,” Ms Jennings said.

Ms Jennings added that funding from national bodies such as the National Lottery had been hard to get as they have been inundated by other organisations.

The campaign has already received more than £40,000.

Mr Adlard will be doing a book signing at Soden Collection gallery in the town on Saturday between 11:00 and 16:00 BST.