Shawn Lee (who co-wrote THE TOOTH with me) and I once came up with a superhero duo we planned on pitching to comic publishers. They might have even existed in the world of the Tooth for all I know. One half of the duo was a small, vicious, Wolverine-like fellow called The Rapacious Mite. The other half was a tall, lean, slimy character called The Vile Tapeworm. Together, they formed The Penultimate Parasites!
They were created out of dumb fun, out of a love for ridiculous adventure tales with heart!
Sometimes… with chasing work and chasing deadlines and chasing payments… it’s easy to forget the “fun” of telling stories for a living. Going into next year, it doesn’t look like I’m gonna have to worry about any of those things. Maybe that means I can chase the fun of it all with a little more verve.
I was thinking about the Mite and the Tapeworm today, because this is 2024’s penultimate issue of Nightmare Fuel! It’s been a year full of downs… and downs… and downs… and a handful of ups, too. I’m glad to have this newsletter. I’m glad that each and every one of you has joined me on the adventure. There’s just one newsletter left in the year!
It’s fun… and fitting… that we’ll be starting 2025 with the 250th issue!
Maybe I should give ol’ Shawn a call. Maybe we can rekindle the stories of the Penultimate Parasites in the coming days.
Even if it’s just for fun.
Last week, we announced ARCANA ROYALE! This week, we’re announcing DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE… ONE LAST TIME!
I’m excited about this book. Not only is it terrific to be working with my pal Dalibor again, but I really do think it is the MOST EPIC Deadpool story of all time!
From the official announcement:
In 2012, writer Cullen Bunn and artist Dalibor Talajić cemented themselves as one of the greatest—and wildest—Deadpool creative teams with their blockbuster limited series, DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, which was followed up with a highly-demanded sequel, DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE AGAIN. This April, they’ll finally reunite to complete their acclaimed trilogy in DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE ONE LAST TIME!
The DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE series ranks among the most famous and best-selling Deadpool sagas. Its no holds barred storytelling unleashes the craziest and deadliest side of everyone’s favorite Merc with the Mouth! No one is off limits, and in its final installment, things are bigger and bloodier than ever with an entire multiverse’s worth of heroes for Wade Wilson to slice and dice!THE TRILOGY CONCLUDES!
First, Deadpool killed every hero in the Marvel Universe… Then he killed every hero in another Marvel Universe… Well, now, he’s back, and this time, slaughtering his way through Earth’s Mightiest Heroes won’t be enough!
He’s going after the worst of the worst, a whole Multiverse of Marvel’s greatest gone bad. Get ready for world-breaking Hulks, werewolf Captain Americas, and some all-new twisted takes! The classic universe-slaughtering team of Cullen Bunn and Dalibor Talajić are back to kill everyone one…more…time!"Oh, man! It’s absolutely bonkers that my pal Dalibor and I are back at it again with good ol’ Wade slaughtering all your favorite heroes!" Bunn said. "And, to celebrate the occasion, we’ve come up with an insanely bonkers story for you!
"It’s heartwarming for us, seeing all the good will and cheer this book brings our way! All kidding aside, though. We wouldn’t have come back to a new DEADPOOL KILLS story unless we could come up with something completely unexpected. And that’s what you’ll get here. You’ll also get what I think is the most epic Deadpool story of all time."
"It seems eons ago that I drew my first Deadpool story—at the time I didn't even know who he was!" Talajić shared. "Still, when DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE happened, it changed my life, so whenever I have an opportunity to come back to him, it's like reuniting with an old friend.It really is a huge joy to be able to work with Cullen again. Throughout the years, we've worked on many different stories together, but Deadpool... is always one hell of a party!
"This is the third time Cullen imagines Deadpool killing the whole Marvel Universe, and for the third time I am in awe with this guy's imagination! Trust me, one hell of a ride awaits for you. I'm already half way through and I'm having a blast! Something that started almost as a joke turned out to be a big event trilogy, 15 years in the making, and that makes me pretty proud!"
Check out covers by David Paratore, Greg Land, and Dan Panosian and preorder DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE ONE LAST TIME #1 at your local comic shop today!
Now, we can quibble about the idea that this is the conclusion of a trilogy. A “pentalogy” maybe? I’m not sure that’s even right. So far, I’ve done…
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DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (original trilogy)
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DEADPOOL KILLUSTRATED (original trilogy)
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DEADPOOL KILLS DEADPOOL (original trilogy)
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DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE… AGAIN (new storyline)
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DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE… ONE LAST TIME (???)
See those little question marks? That’s because I see this new book as its own thing, but it does have (if you look for it) some connectivity to some of the previous work. I wrote this story for people to read and enjoy… or not.
For one of the bestselling Deadpool series of all time… for a perennial bestseller more than a decade after its release… DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE has always been divisive. It was supposed to be. I’m always morbidly amused by the love… and the hate… for the book.
This one, though—THIS one—is something completely different… something even the people who hated the first few will love.
But… yes… it’s gonna be bloody.
I thought it might be fun to wrap the end of the year with a Q&A… I put out a call for questions on Discord and Patreon and a few other places. Here are a batch I received. I’ve got a handful of others that I’ll save for the final issue of the year! If you have questions you want to hit me with, send them my way!
Because you work with so many different artists, I would love it if you could share a bit about what that process looks like. Do you have a list of folks you want to work with?
Oh, yeah. I have a list of artists I would like to work with. Some are folks I’ve worked with time and time again. Some are people I’ve known forever but have never had the chance to work with. Some are folks I don’t know at all other than from admiring their work. Of course, there are always new faces and new names joining that list.
If I’m being honest, I also have a list of artists I’ll never work with (or will never work with again). They might be difficult to work with. They might have gotten on my wrong side in some way. Or they might just be terrible people.
Life’s too short to deal with people who make it more difficult.
Is it typically a match made by the publisher?
Sometimes, especially with work-for-hire projects, the publisher will come in with the person they’d like to illustrate the book. I might have a say on that. I might not. Even with work-for-hire books, I’ve had a little more influence in recent times. There are several WFH books coming up where I’ve brought the artist on board.
With creator-owned, an artist and I might be bringing the project together. Some publishers don’t like that (because they might have someone else in mind for art). Some like it just fine. There are plenty of instances, though, when I’ve brought a creator-owned project to a publisher without art attached. They’ve recommended artists. In some cases, it has brought about lifelong friendships and partnerships!
Do you have a process for building out your creative collaboration so you two are on the same page (pun intended)?
I’ve always felt books are better if everyone is really invested in the book. The best way to build that kind of investment is giving collaborators a voice in the book’s development. I try to do that as much as I can. I also try to be as open and as available as possible during the creation of a book. As for my scripts, I make them as detailed and accessible as possible. I never write a “shortcut” version, even for creators I’ve worked with many, many times. I feel like the collaborators deserve the whole thing and the story deserves the whole thing.
What’s your writing process like?
It’s so, so messy. Tons of notes written in tones of notebooks… and Post-Its… and on the whiteboard… and on random scraps of paper. More paper strewn haphazardly all around me or shoved into my writer’s satchel. Cans of Diet Coke or Diet Mountain Dew. Coffee mugs sitting on coffee warmers for far, far too long. Empty bottles of headache medicine. Crumpled potato chip bags.
It looks like sadness.
It looks like desperation.
Actually, it looks like a lot (and I mean a LOT) of outlines… ranging from quick and dirty plotting to detailed beat-by-beat instructions. The vast majority of my writing (for comics, anyhow) takes place during four outline phases:
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A brainstorming outline… with basic plot elements, tons of character work.
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A very high level outline… basically the high level beats I want to see in a book.
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A slightly more detailed outline… expanding those beats and turning them into scenes, figuring out how much space each scene will take, and cutting and reorganizing to make it all fit.
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A beat-by-beat outline breaking down every page (and every panel) of the story.
And THEN I write!
For prose, of course, that’s very different. A lot of times, I like to just wing it and start writing, but that always gets me into trouble. So, I still do a lot of outlining, mostly on index cards. I like to see all the scenes laid out. I like to add new scenes and move them around. In a way, it feels like a gamification of the outlining process, but I’m all right with that.
Do you have a favorite place you create (office, cafe)?
I have an office where most of my work gets done. That said, I’ve discovered in the last year that I like to create… anywhere except the office. I’ve always liked to work off-site, but lately I’ve just felt like sitting at my desk is stifling. So, I go to the coffee shop. I go to the bar. I sit on the back porch. I sit with my iPad in a recliner in the studio. I still do a lot of work at my desk, but a lot of my best work gets done elsewhere.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
When I was very young… and I’m talking preschool age… I was writing and drawing my own comics. When I was in fourth grade, I wrote and drew a comic for my friends. It was called the X-Lazer Knights and it starred my friends and I going on dangerous space missions. In sixth grade, I was writing a comic called Matter-Man. I still have pages from it somewhere. I was also going to conventions and selling comics I wrote and drew. A little later, around ninth grade, I started writing a fantasy novel. Again, I still have those pages somewhere. And in tenth grade I had a great teacher (one of only two decent teachers I had throughout high school) who really encouraged me to write stories. That stuck with me, and I was pretty much always working on some short story or something from that day forward.
So… that’s a long-winded way of saying, “Pretty much forever.”
What was your proudest creative moment in 2024?
Creatively, 2024 was unusually tough for me. I simply felt… off… for most of the year. Still, there were a few moments I’m pretty proud of. I completed a screenplay for a project I hope you’ll hear a LOT more about in 2025. I wrote my first “official” role-playing game supplement with DEADPOOL ROLE-PLAYS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE. And—and this is a big one—I completed the manuscript for my novel BONES OF OUR STARS, BLOOD OF OUR WORLD. Not too shabby for a difficult year!
What is the process in creating something like (for ARKHAM HORROR)? Was Asmodee / Dark Horse looking for a new edition to the IP or is it something you had in mind? Does it serve a function you found pre established elder gods didn't?
As I recall, I had a different pre-existing elder god in mind at first, but during the brainstorming and planning stages, I asked if there was room for a new creation instead. I loved the idea of creating something new that could be a part of the cannon of ARKHAM HORROR. Also… creating something new was a lot more liberating. There’s no pesky pre-existing backstory to trip up the story!
This is an oldie, and you may have answered it before, but I've seen HELLBREAK issue 11 referenced on ComicVine, but I've never been able to find it. Does it actually exist?
No, that one doesn’t exist, sadly. There’s a script for it, but it was never drawn. It was a very frustrating situation for me. I’d love to return to HELLBREAK someday, but at this point, I’d probably do sort of a soft reboot.
At PAX this year, the folks at Off The Page Games recorded a video walk-through of the HARROW COUNTY board game! As a guy who likes board games but hates reading rules and overviews, I love this sort of thing! Give it a watch!
The kitten is doing well. We’ve been allowing her to roam and play in my studio a bit. She’s found a place she likes to sit while I’m at my desk. And, thus, monsters are created.
And, before I forget it, happy holidays to you and yours! If you’re into gifts, I hope you get some Tinker Toys or a G.I. Joe or whatever! Thanks for spending some time with this newsletter!
This week has been a little busy, and I haven’t been digging into a lot of new (or old) stuff. I did finish the latest season of SURVIVOR, and I enjoyed it, even though my favorites (as always) got picked off earlier on.
I also watched the first season of VOX MACHINA, which I really, really liked. It’s full of action and heart and humor. It truly feels like a Dungeons and Dragons game session brought to life. That something I think some folks might think is easy. It’s not. Not without seeming real dumb.
Other than that, I’ve watched (and re-watched) a few Christmas flicks and Christmas episodes of TV shows. COLBERT’S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL and the holiday episodes of THE OFFICE are always fun for me.
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