Cullen Bunn Interview - Arcana Royale

[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You have just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti. So without further ado, let's get on to the interview.

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[00:01:45] So once again, I just double checked to make sure this is his fourth time on the podcast. He was here once in 2022, 2023, 2024, and we got him back early 2025. But please welcome back to the podcast, Cullen Bunn. Cullen, how are you doing? I'm great. I'm going for that five-time token. I'm assuming we're some sort of t-shirt or a medal.

[00:02:11] Something. We're going to come up with something like a token. Yeah, a t-shirt would be a good idea. Like a hat. We'll figure it out. All right. I like this. Yeah. So we'll have to have you back. We don't have to wait until 2026. We can get you back on later in the year and we'll knock it out. We'll knock it out this year.

[00:02:33] Yeah. I mentioned it right before we started recording, but I think you're a tough creator to keep up with sometimes because I feel like and I don't know if it feels like this for you. You're actually doing it, but it does feel like you, you know, have quite, you know, a few things coming out. Listeners, if you've listened to any of Cullen's episodes before, I've always mentioned his newsletter, which I think was Vicious Shivers and now I think you call it Nightmare Fuel.

[00:03:01] Yeah. I changed the title for some reason. I think you have one of the best newsletters, like in terms of comic creators and the stuff you cover. You just do a really good job of talking about what's going on, stuff you have coming out, but also, you know, a bit about the things that get you excited that you're playing. You know, it's a board game or, you know, stuff that you're reading or stuff that you're into.

[00:03:26] So I think it's a fantastic newsletter, but like going through and preparing for this and trying to see what I had to catch up with. And I'm like, I can't. OK, I can't. I can't do it all. I have to pick and choose, you know. So let me go back and reread Beyond Mortal because I know like that connects to the jump scare world. And that the triple threat of terror that came out from Outer Shadows, which is Outland Entertainment's like horror imprint.

[00:03:54] I wanted to make sure I read those three things because I felt like that was fairly recent. And then a couple other things that I read, like, you know, just for me, I'm a big fan of them bringing of only bringing back EC. And I know I think it was Cruel Universe number three. You had a story in. So, yeah, there's plenty of plenty of things going on to cover. And I did want to start.

[00:04:22] It gets very difficult to keep it all straight, especially I'm a little I'm a little exhausted and like from travel over the last few weeks. So it's even worse. Like as you were naming those, I was like, is that a book of mine? I don't know. Maybe I was I was at I was at Emerald City, this Emerald City Comic Con this past weekend.

[00:04:43] And I had my badge said I was a panelist, you know, and somebody I was just browsing around and some somebody says, hey, what panel are you on? And my answer is that it was immediate and it was honest is I don't have a clue. I don't know what I'm on. I knew I was there to be on a panel. I just didn't know which one. Did you eventually did somebody help you figure it out? Yes, yes, yes, I was there.

[00:05:12] There was a there was a person handling all that. So I knew I was going to get where I was supposed to be. But at that moment, there was no way I would have been able to explain it to anyone. Oh, good. Did you have a good time at a at Emerald City Comic Con? Yeah. You know, I haven't gone to a lot of conventions in, you know, in recent years. I really scaled back and now it looks like this year I'm kind of ramping up.

[00:05:38] And so I had just been to Comics Pro in Los Angeles, which is like the comic book retailer event. And then and then and then immediately I got home. I had a few days at home and then I went to Emerald City and now I'm home for about a week and I'm going to Planet Comic Con in Kansas City next week. So it's but I always have I always have a real good time. Yeah. Oh, that's good.

[00:06:02] Yeah, I was I was jealously looking at your most recent newsletter talking about Emerald City at some of the places you went, like the one barcade you went to look awesome. And then I the food is a restaurant out there that you talked about. Family friend that looked incredible. I didn't I forgot I even posted this. I don't know if I even posted any pictures of that family friend. That place was amazing.

[00:06:28] Yeah, I kind of always always plan out like there are certain things I want to do when I go to a convention after the convention. I always try to find a barcade in town, maybe more than one. I always try to find some weird, quirky bars or restaurants to go to this time around. And when I was in L.A., writer, artist Jeremy Hahn and I kind of explored, you know, explored both cities a little bit and went to some places together.

[00:06:56] Family friend was his recommendation. And it was it was great. Yeah, it looked that the I went to the website afterwards because it sounded neat and the food looked amazing. So I was like, oh, I will. I ever make it out that way. It's on the it's on the list, you know, but to kind of turn it back into comics. I want to talk about some of the things, you know, in terms of the recent stuff.

[00:07:21] One, you're involved in AWA announced the ultimate Oz universe that they're kind that they are going to be putting out that you are a part of. And so what can you tell me about, you know. What details are you able to give out so far about this ultimate Oz universe? And is this really going to be like, I mean, Frank L. Balm wrote, I don't know, like. Fourteen or fourteen.

[00:07:51] And then there were a lot more. Right. Yeah. I think there's 40, 40, maybe something like that, that that came out. But I'm sorry, I interrupted your question. Is it really going to be. No, I just. Yeah. What like is it going to encompass all of that? And what what can you tell us about what AWA, what their plans are? So they have some pretty exciting plans for for the world of Oz. And and it's interesting.

[00:08:18] You said details, you know, it is very detail oriented in that. Unlike, you know, I've written for, you know, Spider-Man, Deadpool, the X-Men. And when I get one of those books, it's always been here. You go. Go write the go write the X-Men. I'm like, all right, I'm on it. This book, I actually had like an Oz historian flew to my town and met with me for like three days to make sure I understood all the details of of Oz.

[00:08:46] And and the Oz historian that came and met with me is just one of like five people who are just the biggest experts on Oz in existence. And and they've really taken this. They want it to be a very true adaptation of the Oz stories. But they also are filling in a lot of blanks in terms of things that happen between, you know, that you may not have picked up in the book that just weren't covered in the book. And they're also doing some.

[00:09:16] Some pretty. We're doing some really exciting sort of. Updates to some of the characters, the designs of some of the characters, the legendary Mike Diodato Jr. is drawing the book. And we're I don't I can say this and you can find them online. There are updates to the way the cowardly lion looks. Tin Man gets a Tin Man gets a major overhaul in this in this series.

[00:09:44] And and even with all those updates. It's very true to Oz. And it's probably the truest adaptation of the Oz books that has has ever existed. Wow. Well, I think a lot of people don't who might. I haven't read a lot of the other Oz books, but I'm a little just a tiny bit familiar. I think a lot of folks who are maybe just familiar with like The Wizard of Oz and some

[00:10:11] of like the kid cartoon adaptations of some of the other stories or were, you know, horrified by the wheelies in Return to Oz. They were still awesome. They were. They were fantastic. I love TikTok. But I don't not the app. I mean, the character. Right. I knew I knew what you meant. Right. Some kids. Some kids are probably what is TikTok have to do with Oz? I don't understand.

[00:10:38] I don't think like the average person with with with some familiarity, like understands like exactly how weird the Frank L. Bomb Wizard of Oz books get. Yeah, they get very strange. And the way we're kind of approaching this. Axel Alonso, the editor in chief at Eddie. But AWA is kind of running point. And we're really approaching this. If you imagine like the Marvel universe, this is kind of the way it's going to be.

[00:11:07] This is like the this is like approaching the Oz universe as this new thing that's burgeoning. And we're going to be able to tell. I mean, just endless story within that framework. There are thousands of characters that were in the bomb books and were, you know, in the and the continuations. Just there's so much information, so much story out there. So it's there's a lot a lot there to explore.

[00:11:33] And I mean, in terms of like, are there going to be other writers involved as well? Or is it there will be some other writers involved? Despite what everyone thinks, I simply cannot handle that many that many books. So, yeah, there will be other writers involved that I don't know when they'll be announced. But OK, there'll be and there's there they're already in the work. There's there's already new material in the works in the in the Oz.

[00:12:01] OK, because I had read something else you had you had said about it. I wanted to provide you an opportunity to do your hungry tiger impression. Well, you know, it was funny. I was in this panel introducing Oz and I was like, man, this is this panel is getting pretty serious. I need to I need to lighten it up a little bit. So someone asked who your who are favorite characters in Oz were. And I was like, well, let me do my hungry. There's a character called Hungry Tiger who's sort of a foil.

[00:12:31] For the cowardly lion there. There, you know, they're there in the same. But Hungry Tiger likes to say as I'm writing, the secret to my writing is I speak in voices. I may have said this on one of your other shows as I'm writing. I speak in the voice here. Right. And Hungry Tiger sounds he's always talking about. Mm. Give me a fat, succulent, baby. He's like. He's always looking for succulent babies to feast upon.

[00:13:02] Fantastic. Well, I mean, that's that's that's pretty exciting. I just love the world of of Oz. I love I love how bizarre it can get. So I'm really excited to see. It's there. Believe me. Yeah. Yeah. So before we talk about some of the other comics, I did just want to mention because I mentioned before Outland Entertainment.

[00:13:25] But you have written Quillen Codex, which is like a role playing game. And I think the gist of it, I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong. But you were talking about where I was reading that you had said, like, you know, games that are really rule intensive. And you wanted to create something, create a system where players can kind of, you know, pick it up pretty quickly.

[00:13:53] And so I was just, you know, wanted to hear more about. Yeah. It's something that I started tinkering with a few years back. I started messing around with this role playing system. I love role playing games. I've played them for I mean, I've I've been playing role playing games almost as long as I've been reading comics.

[00:14:16] I collect role playing games and I just I wanted something that if I got together with like a group of five people and maybe some of them have played games sometimes and some of them have never played games. I wanted something that I could say, here we go. We're going to play this. And in five to ten minutes, they would know everything they need to know to play and we could dive in and go. It has rules. It's not like a free for all, but the rules are very condensed, very focused.

[00:14:46] And I really wanted something that was designed around this idea of just getting together and telling stories together. And and we're going to we released Quillen Codex. It's like a 45 page rule book and it's got everything you need to play the game. It's got, you know, character classes and monsters and magic items and all that. It's all in there.

[00:15:10] And what we decided to do with it for the base rules, we just released them for free and they will always be free. You can download them at Outland Entertainment. You can download the Quillen Codex rules right now and have that game and ready to and it's ready to play. We're going to be releasing sort of a dungeon adventure for Quillen Codex that we're going to be doing like a level every two weeks. We'll post online. So that's going to be free as well for people who want to play the game.

[00:15:39] And then we'll release some additional additional materials for it. Maybe a book of book of monsters, a book of magic items, things like that. Those won't won't necessarily be free, but they will be pretty cheap and you'll be able to build up, you know, and play and add more enhancements to the game. It'll always be simple, but we can always enhance it.

[00:16:02] And, you know, some of the exciting things that Outland Entertainment has a lot of different properties they have kind of curated and created. We can do role-playing settings in, you know, role-playing books for those settings. I can't necessarily publish, you know, role-playing games for most of my materials, like Six Gun, for instance. If I wanted to do, I can't really publish and sell like a Six Gun role-playing game that I did without, you know, going through the licensing step.

[00:16:32] Sure. But I can sure put one on my Patreon free to my patrons and that's kind of stuff. So I'll be able to do Harrow County role-playing game material and put that on my Patreon. Yeah. So it's going to be very well supported and there's going to be a lot of available material for it. Oh, that's cool. What was kind of like your inspiration in terms of like the world building for Quill and Codex? Is it like a D&D-esque or did you go like more of a horror direction?

[00:17:03] No, it's this first one. So the main rubric is very Dungeons and Dragons-like. It's a fantasy world. Okay. And we used the artwork is by Nicholas Giacondino and he did this amazing fantasy, this series of fantasy art. So we incorporated that into it. And I thought a fantasy setting was easy to understand. It would be easy for a new reader or a new gamer to say, okay, I get it. This is a, you know, it's a Dungeons and Dragons kind of thing.

[00:17:29] Like now the adventure modules that we're doing is called Damon Rot and that's a little darker, a little more of a grimdark fantasy adventure. Oh, okay. And we'll be, you know, I've already started working on rules for like a horror game, a horror version of Quill and Codex and things like that that we'll, we'll layer in as, as time goes on. Because even though it's set up as a fantasy game, it's so simple.

[00:17:54] If someone said they wanted to play a modern day or a cyberpunk, they could easily adapt those rules into cyberpunk or, or modern story before I, before I even get around to putting that kind of material out and they can do it for themselves too. Oh, nice. No, I love that. You mentioned Harrow County and actually as we, as we record this just last week, I interviewed Shad Miller and Jay Cormier from off the page games.

[00:18:19] And we were talking about my friend, Dan has the Harrow County game and we've played it and, and love it. But yeah, I'm a big board game fan as well and RPG. And so I'm excited to see how the Quill and Codex came out. You know, I'm, I'm just trying to do, I, I, I don't like to sit still and I like to do different things and I get excited about a role-playing game for a little while.

[00:18:45] I wrote last year, I wrote, uh, a supplement for the Marvel universe role-playing game. I wrote Deadpool role-plays the Marvel universe. And I had so much fun writing that. I just, you know, I, I just wanted to keep chasing that kind of fun. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, and, and, and speaking of Deadpool, uh, you know, I think, uh, April 2nd, 2025 is, um, another Deadpool.

[00:19:14] Oh, I'm going to get the title right. Deadpool kills the Marvel universe again. No, that was, this is Deadpool kills the Marvel universe one last time. One last time. That's right. Okay. So yeah, out, out April 2nd, Deadpool kills the Marvel universe, uh, one last time. When you, when you do something like. Is your first question why? No, not, it's not why.

[00:19:37] It's, it's, as a writer, do you, when you, you have, I think you're one of the most, and I've, I've told you this before. I think you're one of the most prolific writers, like in, in comic books right now. Um, you know, that's why I said it's tough to keep up. You have a lot of stuff coming out. And so, and you have, everything is, is like, is so, you know, different.

[00:20:03] Um, when you, when you kind of attack something like this, you know, again, or like one last time, is there ever a, like a struggle for what could I possibly have Deadpool do now to keep it fresh? Or, you know, does, does something about that character let you really get in there and, and, and kind of, right. Like, well, I think Deadpool definitely, uh, facilitates that a little bit.

[00:20:32] But this was a, this was an interesting project just in general. Um, so I don't know, a few months back, Marvel released a series of Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe variant covers. So all their books had different covers with Deadpool killing Captain America or Moon Knight or whoever. Um, and Dalibor Talajic, who is the artist on the first two Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe series messaged me. And he said, did you see all these covers? Isn't that cool? And I was like, it is cool.

[00:21:01] Sounds like they're still interested in that property. Let's pitch him another book. And we, uh, we, I immediately wrote an email saying that sounds like you're still interested in Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe. Let's do another book. Um, and I honestly didn't think I was going to get a reply. I thought it was going to be, you know, dead air, but they replied pretty quick. You know, like, huh? Yeah, let's do that. So then I had to come up with an idea.

[00:21:28] And, and this is a, this, I think we came up, what we came up with and what Dalibor and I are doing, and this is not hyperbole on my part. I'm throwing the gauntlet down. This is the most epic Deadpool story that has ever been written. Full style. It is, it is completely different. And it all comes from, we were trying to do something very different from the first two. You know, in the first one, it was a certain story.

[00:21:57] The second one, I wanted to do something a little different. And we explored the idea of Deadpool killing all these characters in a different way. This one is a completely unique take on this idea. It goes in a completely different direction. And I think this may be the one where readers may, I mean, look, there are obviously some twisted folks out there who are rooting for Deadpool to kill the Marvel Universe.

[00:22:25] Um, in the previous incarnations. But this one, this is the one where you should be rooting for Deadpool to kill the Marvel Universe. Okay. Um, and, and it's, it's been a lot of fun. It's, uh, Dalibor is just a delight, delight to work with. I got, I mean, I get more pages every day and it just looks, it looks gorgeous. And it's absolutely bonkers what we're, where we're going with this thing and what we're doing.

[00:22:54] Is it, I, I, did I see, is it a five issue series? Five issue series. Nice. And, you know, and this is, I think it's a great, it's a great series to put a bow on it. Right. To just say, okay, Cullen is done with Deadpool killing Marvel universes. Until Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe one last time again. Because frankly, I'll do it. I don't care who's going to stop me. Only Marvel can stop me and they don't want to yet. So. Yeah, not yet.

[00:23:24] Well, that's great. So April 2nd, that'll be out. That's awesome. All right, everybody. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Let's face it. The comics landscape is a mess right now. I'm the editor in chief of a comics journalism outlet, and I can't even keep track of it all. If you are as passionate as I am about indie comics and its creators, you should check out The Lantern Guide. Created on the premise of creating light in the dark, it's going to be the go-to resource to keep you up to date on the projects and the creators that you love.

[00:23:53] Don't take my word for it. I reached out to my friend Brian Lovell, Poison Ivy artist and indie comics creator, to get his take. Brian, what does The Lantern Project fix? I'm a dude who loves indie comics, and I know personally, like, I get very frustrated when something shows up in my social media timeline or something like that, and I feel like I can't keep track of everything. So really, The Lantern Project was born out of that.

[00:24:19] It was an opportunity for me as a reader to kind of, like, have a place to want to consolidate all the stuff that I wanted to read. All the cool projects from cool creators that seemed interesting and kind of unique to, like, something that I would like, which is really not super represented everywhere else, but it's all over the indies. Having a spot to go to that felt like it consolidated a lot of those audiences and a lot of those places where I couldn't just get drowned out in the feed of social media seemed really valuable to me.

[00:24:49] What's the ultimate goal? It's really our hope with this project that creators feel like they're able to get in front of readers, and readers are able to get books that they actually want to read with a much easier time of keeping track of them. And accessing them. The catalog is scheduled for a quarterly release, so head over to thelanterncatalog.com to sign up now so you don't miss your next favorite thing. I'll put a link in the show notes for you.

[00:25:16] Y'all, Jimmy, the Chaos Goblin strikes again. I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know, and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing. Another friend chimes in, are you going to make maps? It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together, so I guess? It was then that I discovered Arkenforge.

[00:25:44] If you don't know who Arkenforge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive, allowing you to build, play, and export animated maps, including in-person Fog of War capability that lets your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM, get the full picture. Now I'm set to easily build high-res animated maps, saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign. That's a win every day in my book.

[00:26:13] Check them out at arkenforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off. I'll drop a link in the show notes for you, and big thanks to Arkenforge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even. Welcome back. Well, now I guess let's talk about Jump Scare. Jump Scare. So Jump Scare. First issue came out February 26th, 2025. It is in stores now. Yeah.

[00:26:41] Issue 2 will be out, I think, April 9th. That sounds right. Yeah. So it's through Dark Horse, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. And so it's kind of set in the Beyond Mortal world. I think I backed the first Kickstarter for that, and I read, what was the first one? Like 60 pages? The first Kickstarter was 60 pages, and then we did a trade paperback OGN for the entire thing. It's like a 120-something page graphic novel.

[00:27:11] Okay. That's available from Dark Horse right now. And that, so Beyond Mortal, I've always described as sort of the Justice League versus the Cthulhu mythos. I mean, it's not that, obviously. These are my own mythos and my own superheroes. But it's the superhero world that's in the embrace of this horrific problem. That's what Beyond Mortal's about. Right. And listeners, if you haven't read it, I'll give my own plug for it. It's fantastic.

[00:27:37] All of the superheroes feel like, they're, you know, they feel kind of familiar if you've grown up and read superhero comics. They all are kind of like a different, unique take. I think The Secret's my favorite. But... Artist Danny Luckert would agree with you. The Secret's his favorite as well. Yeah. And so Danny Luckert is on Beyond Mortal, which he worked with Danny on some other comics before. Was Danny on Lucky Devils?

[00:28:05] No, Danny did Regression. We did Regression together. Okay. Yeah. The artwork's fantastic. It's a really wonderful... It's really great. And it's... But in any event. So this... Jump Scare is set in this same world. Right. And the important thing to know about Jump Scare, it is set in the Beyond Mortal universe. But you don't need to read Beyond Mortal to enjoy Jump Scare. It stands on its own.

[00:28:35] It's like the old days when you could read Avengers and Spider-Man and never the two necessarily need to meet. You know, they're in the same world and you can get things out of both of them if you read both. But you don't have to. Jump Scare is easily the most fun I've had working on a comic in, I mean, just years. It's...

[00:28:58] Jump Scare is sort of a solo superhero, street-level vigilante in this city, this empire city. And she was just an everyday, average girl. She liked horror movies in a big way. She was like a big horror movie fan. She didn't feel like she fit in with her family, but she always found comfort in horror movies. And one day she's leaving the movie theater after watching some gross, disgusting movie.

[00:29:27] And she wanders into an alley, as you do after you go to a movie. And in that alley, she encounters this cosmic thing. And it opens her eyes. It breaks her mind. And from that, she walks away with a number of bizarre superpowers. She's very strong. She's very fast. She can take a hit like nobody's business.

[00:29:53] She can teleport anywhere that someone's not looking. So she can pop up behind you. As long as no one's looking at that spot, she can teleport there. But her most unique power is that she can conjure into existence any weapon from any horror movie she's seen. And she's just seen a ton of horror movies. So with that ability, she decides to fight evil and become this vigilante.

[00:30:19] And she somehow becomes the most popular superhero in the world. Everybody loves her. And she just is this gore-soaked superhero out there fighting monsters and crime in Empire City. And if you're a horror movie fan, there's a lot to love. If you're a superhero fan, there's a lot to love. So she is sort of our Harley Quinn. She's sort of our Deadpool.

[00:30:49] Maybe a little bit of Tank Girl thrown in the DNA. But then just a lot of horror movie references and love. So Beyond Mortal, like you said, it's this kind of great combination of these two things, like the Justice League and the Cthulhu mythos. But I think Beyond Mortal works so well because it's played kind of like right down the middle. There's superheroes.

[00:31:19] This is end-of-the-world level old god stuff. Like, you know, there's definite state. I thought it was fun with Jump Scare that you're kind of really playing into the horror, like comedy elements of it all. Like if Beyond Mortal was your, like, Evil Dead. This is your Evil Dead 2 maybe into Army of Darkness. Right? That's a perfect example.

[00:31:49] I like that. Yeah. You know, horror fiction has so many different flavors, so many different genres that you can play with. So yeah, this is absolutely a horror comedy. Jump Scare narrates the whole thing. I think she's very quirky. I think she's very relatable. What I thought was really something I didn't expect is Jump Scare's, you know, civilian name is Allie. And I've been seeing all these reviews pop up and people commenting on it.

[00:32:17] And they never say, I like Jump Scare because of this. They're all, all these people are saying, I really relate to Allie because of this. I'm like, oh, so they're, they're picking up on her humanity. I mean, they don't care that she's lopping heads off and, you know, crawling through the guts of giant monsters. And I like that, that she seems so relatable to people. And that's, that's really great for me. Yeah.

[00:32:44] And I'm sure as the series goes on, we're going to continue to get a lot of like, you know, horror movie references. And I mean, what a, what, what just like a fun power you can conjure any, any horror movie, you know, weapon. That's kind of wild. So one of the things, you know, like the original art that when I pitched this idea to Danny, he immediately, like it felt like he did it instantly.

[00:33:12] Like he somehow willed the art into existence because I think I sent him an email and it felt like it popped right back with, hey, what about this? And he, you know, some of his original concept art that we've never really revealed has jump scare wearing like Freddie's glove. And, you know, there's, uh, there's ashes chainsaw next to her and she's got Jason's machete. Um, right. And obviously we can't, you know, editorials like, hold up.

[00:33:39] We don't know if that's legal or not to put these, you know, I mean, right. There are tons of real horror movie references throughout the book, but yeah. One of the things I had to do, and it was actually a lot of fun is I created this entire filmography that she's pulling movie that she's pulling weapons from. So every time she creates a weapon, this little movie ticket appears on the panel and it says what the weapon is and what year the movie came out and what the movie's title is.

[00:34:08] Uh, so I have all these different, you know, I have to keep track of it now. All these strange movies I'm, I'm listing that, that exist in her world alongside all of our favorite horror movies. Right. Right. I mean, I imagine that that is part of the fun of it, but also, you know, having to constantly come up with the names of movies and different types of weapons can be a little like, oh, what did I do to myself? It's fine. I love it. I love the, I mean, I'm just really thinking about the movies I like.

[00:34:39] Yeah. And she does conjures, I mean, her conjurations get a little, I mean, definitely get crazy as the crazier as the series goes on. As it goes on, yeah. What are some of your favorite horror movies that you draw from? Like, what's the one that you think people don't talk about enough that you were always a big fan of? Is there something that comes to mind? Don't talk about enough? Well, I don't, you know, I love the Phantasm franchise.

[00:35:07] I really love the Phantasm movies. My favorite of the bunch is Phantasm II, which I think is just a near pitch perfect movie. And I love those. I love, you know, I don't feel like, you know, Evil Dead kind of overshadows it a little bit. In the world of horror fandom, everyone knows, you know, the tall man and Reggie Bannister and the sentinel orbs that suck out brains.

[00:35:35] But I don't know that outside of it, people may not realize Phantasm is such a bizarre mind trip of a horror movie. Okay. Yeah, I haven't seen that in years. I just remember the ball. Yeah. There's five of them. Five Phantasm. Are there really? Yeah. That's the thing about horror movies. They get going. They can just. That's right. They do just they do have a tendency to just to crank them out.

[00:36:04] Speaking of naming things and naming movies, I'm always kind of fascinated with like your naming conventions for thing. And I was curious. Let's hear this one. Well, well. Now, not like the names of your, you know, not like the names of your series or. But. I was thinking in particular, like, and maybe it just lends itself, you know, something like Autumn Kingdom, the series that you do with Christopher Mitten.

[00:36:34] But when you're you're talking about the. The the two sisters, like from the dad's books and like the name of the sword. And I think that I was also reading. Something else. And I was just kind of like. I feel like you name places and things, especially when they're when you write stories not based in the real world, that it has like a. I don't know,

[00:37:00] a naming convention to it that I feel is from like that people aren't quite doing anymore. And you do it so well. It's almost like you like went back to like. You have a treasure trove. Of like pulp novels or magazines from like the 70s. And you're like, I need the name of a sword. And you're like flipping through. Hex Isles. You really do it. Hex Isles. You went to town on Hex Isles. I named all the spells,

[00:37:27] all their powers and all their spells in in Hex Isles. And I and I do. I do have a dusty. Collection of pulp and old books, and it's stuck up here. And OK, no, you know, I just I think there are some people out there who are really good at it. And I've always admired people who could just name stuff. And for me, I want every name of things like that.

[00:37:56] I want it to have some sort of I don't know. It's hard to explain. I want it to have a resonance that makes you feel like it's referring to something bigger. And sometimes it is. Sometimes I have some plan for it. A lot of times I just want to come up with a cool name that sounds like I have a plan for it. And then maybe I'll come up with a plan later. But but yeah, I'd forgotten Hex Isles is one. But I can't name those spell those power names right now off the top of my head.

[00:38:24] But I really remember like really working. What can this be called? And it sounds infernal and have a big history. And yeah, it's like I know one's called the damnation roots, but it's the damnation roots of something. And it's it's. Yeah, I love naming stuff. I just I just love it. But, you know, going back to what I said earlier, I also forget what I've named. And so sometimes I have to go back and I have to reread the comics. Oh, I read. Oh, yeah,

[00:38:53] I named it this. And I have to go back and rework that in. I should keep I should keep better notes. But even my notes would be a mess because I don't want to like God, I don't ever want to put like my concepts into like an Excel spreadsheet or something that I can sort because that feels like it would just take the magic away for me. Yeah, I get that. But I just really like like how you go about.

[00:39:22] I like whatever the reason, if it's because you have something planned or you just want to, you know, want it to seem like it has some type of impact. It's just something that I notice and pick up on. And I love it. But speaking of Hex Isles, which is with Mad Cave, you're working with artist Joe Bacardo. I think I think issue. I think four issues are out now. And the fifth one's right around the bend.

[00:39:52] Yeah. OK. Any any any minute now, the fifth one should be dropping. OK, so the list if listeners are have not picked up Hex Isles. Well, one listeners who listen to the podcast, I'm a huge Mad Cave fan. That's that's number one. But number two, Hex Isles is so good. I'm not all caught up yet. I have the four issues that have come out. I've read the first two of them.

[00:40:20] Joe Bacardo's art is so creepy. It is what? I mean, I was expecting something a little gory, but it is it is gross. It is. Well, the second issue is really gross. Look, it is so gross. So gross. You know, it's in such a wonderful, like in such a like a wonderful way. Like, I thought it was intense, like suspenseful,

[00:40:49] unbelievably creepy and dark. I just I loved his style of art. It just felt like it was absolutely perfect for it. I kind of love how it just like weirdly got like right into it with. It's for listeners. If you don't know that the story is it opens on a funeral. There's these these people that are there at the funeral. Turns out they've all gotten like an anonymous call to say your dad's dead. None of them really knew their dad. Turns out not a great guy.

[00:41:18] And the word has done some things. The word they've done. He's done some things. And now they all kind of have the let's say demon powers. And they are supposed to have like a bigger destiny. And they don't initially they're not psyched about it. And bad consequences flow. It just thought just grab me right away. And I just fantastic. Absolutely love it. Yeah.

[00:41:47] And you're right. Joe's art is it's kind of perfect for that series and that in the feel of it. And and and yeah, it's it's really there is some there are some definite grotesque moments in that book. But it's one of the it's one of the first books, I think, that for various reasons, certain issues have like the publisher put trigger warnings on them. Like, hey, you might really issue may be upsetting. Just be careful. Just be aware.

[00:42:17] This one might upset you a little bit. Was it fun doing a book like that? That wasn't, you know, like a, you know, a superhero or type of book where you had like a bigger cast of characters to play with? Yeah, was that trickier? No, no, it's it's it's freeing. It's awesome. I feel like it sets up bigger things. There's a lot of there's a lot more we could do with it.

[00:42:42] You know, it's I love being able to, you know, just write, you know, write the kind of story I want to write. Yeah. You know, and some people, the dad, the dad in in Hexiles is named Jameson Creel. And and some people have written to me saying, well, he's he's sort of John Constantine, but worse. And I'm like, yeah. And no publish. No, D.C. would never let me do with John Constantine what I'm doing in Hexiles.

[00:43:11] So now, you know, absolutely not. Yeah. It's very freeing from that. From that. I don't even know if they'd let you do that on a black label book. No, I don't think so. I think this is this is some there's some real darkness in this book. But what's interesting, what's interesting about it is there's real darkness, but some of the character, you know, it's, you know, the main cast, the Hexiles. Some of them are kind of fun and they're a little, you know, they've got sort of a cool attitude.

[00:43:38] Some of them are a little more mopey or, you know, it's like a little dysfunctional family trying to figure their way through this. This nightmare. Yeah. Argyle is a real mess, but I like him because of that. Yeah. Argyle is a disaster. I think they're all a little messed up. Let's be. Let's. I mean, I might as well just say that they're all messed up. But who is it? They all have true. Absolutely true. I mean, Jameson Creel, though, again, speaking of names, fantastic names.

[00:44:07] And this is a perfect segue because another fantastic name. Hudson Tremaine, the character in Arcana Royale, which is I think that's also a Dark Horse book. And that issue one is going to be out April 23rd. Yeah. Of this year. So, yeah. So tell me about what trouble Hudson Tremaine gets into.

[00:44:34] This is kind of based in the world of gambling and you're working with Zamudio. Yeah. AC Zamudio. I've worked with her before on a few different projects and she's just awesome. You want to talk about a book where I had to come up with a lot of names? Get ready. Okay. So, yeah.

[00:44:52] Arcana Royale is essentially it's sort of like rounders or any kind of gambling poker type story, you know, where people are going in and or Casino Royale where, you know, they're playing this game for high stakes and they're in the middle of, you know, the world series of poker in a way. Except the game isn't poker and it's played with this mystical set of tarot cards that we created for the book.

[00:45:21] And and every game has ramifications in the real world. And the winner of this tournament gets to control fate in some way. They get real power. They get a real prize. They can control fate. Hudson Tremaine is just an she's just a gambler. She's been thrown out of every casino in, you know, in Vegas.

[00:45:45] And this group of this group of mortals comes to her and say, look, we know this game exists. Mortals never get a shot at controlling fate. We want you to win this game for us so we can control fate. So she enters this tournament and she plays with the weirdest groups of people. The tournaments in places like meatpacking plants and cemeteries. It's played in different bizarre places.

[00:46:13] And and in every every time a card is played, it has some different ramifications in the world around them. And so and it's there's so many bizarre characters and AC just drew them so well. And and I really like Hudson. She's she's a fun sort of no nonsense, take no guff kind of gambler characters who's definitely in over her head.

[00:46:41] She's definitely not used to playing. To playing cards with magicians and giant sock monkeys and tentacular creatures and witches. She's not used to this, but that's where she is. Yeah, I really like the cover that I've I've seen that's on previews with the the goat, the goat man in the very nice. Yeah, his name is Valerio.

[00:47:07] He's one of the dealers of of the of the of the Arcanos Mysterios is the name of the card game. Did you have to do any like gambling research? Like, did you look into the world of high stakes poker and tournament or underground gambling for this? Was that a world you were already familiar with? I did a little research. My dad was really into all that when I was a kid. So I drew a lot of that for my dad was really he was a real gambler.

[00:47:37] And and also the good news. And I never picked up that he was good at it. I was always terrible at card. We never picked those skills up. But the good news is, you know, the game is is completely. Fictional, this game they're playing there, they're there. It's not played like poker. It has some similarities, things that you'll recognize as you see him play. Oh, I know that they're doing something like poker here.

[00:48:06] But, you know, when they're raising, they're raising years of life off of your life or something, you know, or things like that. There right. There are different different components to the game. And then, like I said, I'm I listed and I did not expect AC to do this. I listed all of these cards, a major arcana and then all the suits of the of the different all the different suits. And AC went and just drew them all.

[00:48:36] She basically created a tarot deck. Oh, wow. Who knows what we'll do with that? So. That's awesome. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I love that. And so, yeah, April 23rd, that'll be out from Dark Horse. And I'm trying to think of looking at the sea might my list. Oh, you're also doing an issue of I think you're going to have a story in Hello Darkness. Number nine. Oh, I do. That's probably coming out pretty soon. Yeah.

[00:49:04] One of that's a it's sort of a it's booms. It's booms horror anthology comic. And yeah, I have a have a gross little story in that. Oh, perfect. It was a it was a lot. I love those. I love those anthologies. I love those short horror stories. So it was a lot of fun. Those can be difficult. Those can be tough to write. Getting getting in and out of that kind of story and making it feel complete is tough sometimes.

[00:49:30] It looks like that'll the story you have and that'll be out March 26th. Yeah, I mean, that can be quite a challenge when you only have a certain number of pages. I'm sure you're you're you're limited to try and, you know, introduce your characters, get to what it is you're you're talking about. You know, what did you think? You know, I mentioned it earlier, but in terms of the story you had in Cruel Universe, like was that something that came to you pretty quick?

[00:49:59] Like, oh, I have something that can that'll be perfect within the confines of that. So when only came to me and asked about doing that and I, you know, I sent him, I think, three or four ideas, like a couple of sentence ideas. And those came pretty quick. And then the one they pick, they were like, oh, yeah, this is the one we think we should go with. Then I think that story is only four or five pages long. It feels really short when I think about it. Maybe it's longer, but it felt shorter.

[00:50:30] I was like, oh, no, I have to now I wrote two sentences. Two sentences are easy. Now I have to figure out how to make that story. Fit in the confines. Of, you know, five pages, it could have easily been it could have easily been its own limited series. It could have been, you know, a much bigger story. So that's always the challenge. I think it turned out great. I think the art on it's great.

[00:51:00] I like the way it looked. And. And I think it played fine. It just that when I kind of sweated over a little bit, just trying to figure out if I could make it work. Well, what was what was your like pitch for it? What was your like two sentence idea that you had to turn into it? You remember? So it probably read something like and it's it's an idea of kind of tinkered with in the past, but it could probably read something.

[00:51:29] I and I don't even remember what we call the story in cruel universe now. But. But. I think I said something like. In this world, everyone has a little AI driven morality compass. And when you do something wrong, you get a little a little jolt. But what if those compasses turned against us? And that was I mean, that's kind of the. That was kind of the idea.

[00:51:58] So, I mean, obviously, it's me exploring how do you you know, what if AI gets so bad that it starts judging us for our decision making and and how how far does that go? Right. Because I don't want to get shocked by a computer for making bad decisions because that's a all day, every day, every hour, every minute kind of situation for me. Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:52:26] That doesn't sound like it would it would be a lot of fun. But yeah, I was just looking up the you called the story. Behave. Oh, behave. Yeah, that's right. That was not the original title. I can't remember what the original title was. Behave. Behave was a suggestion from from editorial. OK. Yeah, I really liked it. I liked all the stories in the one that you're in and cruel universe number three. They're all really good. I think Zach Thompson wrote one that's in there.

[00:52:54] And but yeah, they're there. They are. They are a lot of fun. I love the anthology. I love the anthology. I love that they're doing the EC, you know, that they're doing that. I keep on saying Tales from the Abyss. I think it's epitaphs of the epitaphs. Yeah. Yeah. The covers. The covers of those magazines are just great. I mean, I love the cover art on every issue. Yeah. Yeah, I do, too.

[00:53:22] They're they're they're awesome. So, yeah. Cullen, I mean, I think we did it. I think I think we covered it. We'll realize we forgot something important afterwards, but that's always for for the fifth the fifth visit. Yes. The fifth visit will make we'll cover. I'm going to go through. I'm going to go through my list. I wrote a list to make sure I covered all the stuff that I wanted to talk about. Oh, I recently read. I didn't get a chance.

[00:53:51] I recently read monsters are my business. I really like that. Um, so I'll mention that as well. Uh, if you if listeners haven't read monsters are my business, I thought that was really cool. I really like the little wallet who, uh, yeah, the chainsaw wielding chainsaw. Yes. Yeah. Well, but at one point he had a flamethrower, which I also have a flamethrower. He's a very mean little koala. Yeah.

[00:54:16] And I think I think boom studios recently put out like the complete collection of bone parish. Yeah, I guess. Listen, I guess I didn't realize this. So the book just came out, I think last week. March 5th. Yeah. And, uh, it's part of this initiative boom to celebrate their anniversary is releasing a number of, of books in these complete collection editions. So it's a paperback. It's going to be, it's 12 issues of content. I haven't seen my, uh, contributor copies.

[00:54:45] I haven't seen them yet, but I think it's only 20 bucks. I mean, it's a bargain for 12 issues of content. And bone parish is awesome too. I mean, that is, that is a fantastic story from beginning to end. Thank you. So yeah, listeners, perfect opportunity. If you've not read bone parish to, you know, contact your local shop and, uh, and, and pick it up. But, um, but definitely check, check out jump scare. You don't have to read beyond mortal to get into jump scare, but if you want, I'm sure

[00:55:14] you can find beyond mortal. It's, it's fantastic. And, um, yeah, our counter Royale and Deadpool kills the Marvel universe. One last time. There we go. All right. All right. Well, uh, uh, Colin, thank you again for coming on the podcast. Uh, as always shout out to my brother, Bobby, the cryptic creator corners. Number one, most dedicated fan. Bobby listens to all my episodes. He's also a huge Colin Bunn fan.

[00:55:40] Um, I wish you had a smart guy that Bobby, he's very smart, very smart. Um, but all right, uh, listeners, thank you very much for listening. Find me on blue sky or, or tick tock. Let me know what it is. Uh, you're reading, especially if you're reading Cullen's work, let's talk about some of your favorite Colin Bunn comics. And, uh, yeah, I really appreciate it. And I will see you next time. Thanks. Good night. This is Byron O'Neill. One of your hosts of the cryptic creator corner brought to you by comic book Getty.

[00:56:10] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate review, subscribe all that good stuff. It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening.