It was revealed today that actor Dallas Roberts will play Milton (pictured above), who even readers of The Walking Dead comic series won’t recognize.

Comic creator and show executive producer Robert Kirkman explained to Entertainment Weekly who Milton is. “Milton is the details guy. He’s the guy that works with the Governor, who is monitoring all situations and is trying to help the Governor make sense of this world that they’re living in. He’s not exactly a scientist, but he’s a smart guy that is trying to find out how zombies behave. Watching him do his little experiments is going to be a lot of fun.”

When we hear the name Milton we can’t help but think of the nerdy character on The Simpsons, and just like that Milton, The Walking Dead‘s seems to be geeky.

Executive producer Greg Mazzara explained further, “We were examining, ‘How do people survive in this apocalyptic world, and what can people contribute?’ And we didn’t think it was plausible that every single character we meet is an efficient zombie killer. We just didn’t buy that everyone we know would be active and deft enough to kill every walker. We wanted to show how other people survive, and Dallas has come in and helped us establish that character. He just adds a lot of heart and humanity to Woodbury, which further complicates what that is. That is a real town with real people and real survivors. It’s not necessarily a group of bad guys.”

The Walking Dead returns to AMC Sunday, October 14. Other new characters in season 3, who you may already be aware of, include The Governor and Michonne.