Issue 305: Mythic Grindhouse
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Mythic Grindhouse | A Welcome from RevBunn | Ripcord Cold Open | Write Through the Fear | Stoker Preliminary Ballot | ArtCon | New Books | Weekly Obsessions | Events
This week, my new comic Ripcord tears its way onto the shelves. It’s a book I’m very excited about, a book that treads some new territory for me, a book that refuses to pull any punches. It’s gorgeous and brutal at the same time. It’s also a book that’s a little hard to label, genre-wise.
Horror.
Action.
Zombie/infection.
Grindhouse.
Post apocalyptic.
Pre-apocalyptic.
Those all fit, I suppose, but they also only dance around the edges of Ripcord’s territory.
So… what’s in Ripcord’s DNA?
The book grew out of numerous overlapping genre traditions. Stories of rage-fueled revenge. Stories of dangerous roads. Stories of self-reliance and survival and loss. Stories of people becoming monsters, either through horrible catalyst, through greed, or through the necessity of survival instinct.
That lineage runs straight through movies like Mandy (a film I did not appreciate when I first watched it, but later came to love), where grief explodes into something surreal and dream-like.
It’s burrowed tick-deep in frenzied heart of a much less surreal (in fact, maybe too brutally realistic) High Tension, strips survival down to its most frantic, breathless essentials. In both cases, the story isn’t just about escaping danger. It’s about how loss and fear and desperation change someone.
(It’s interesting that both those movies lean heavily into physical weapons, High Tension with the iconic barbed wire bat and concrete saw, Mandy with the Beast and the Reaper. Those death-dealers turn the stories into something much more epic. Stay tuned, then, for the arrival of the Ogre in Ripcord’s second issue.)
In Revenge, trauma reshapes its heroine into a force of nature, a force of retribution, a hunter.
In The Hitcher, horror and dread changes people, but it also changes the very landscape, the wide-open blacktop becoming a airtight trap, the expanse of the road leaving you exposed and vulnerable.
In The Hills Have Eyes (take your pick on the version, but I like the 2006 remake just fine) isolation strips people down to pure instinct.
While I don’t necessarily think of Ripcord as a zombie story, 28 Days Later and Train to Busan are part of the mix, too, with friends and loved ones turning into vicious killers in the blink of an eye and visceral horror serving as a backdrop for deeply personal stories of family and sacrifice.
On the literary side, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road refuses to offer respite or comfort, as a father and son across a dead landscape where kindness is dangerous and hope is fragile. And Blood Meridian presents violence as inevitable, something embedded in the land, something systemic.
What connects all of these stories is the obsession with transformation. No character endures what they are facing without being reshaped.
These tales are each transformational in their own way.
Sometimes that transformation is heroic.
Sometimes it’s tragic.
Sometimes it’s monstrous.
Every now and again, it’s all three at once.
It turns you into someone new.
These movies and books, along with many others I can’t recall at the moment, are brutal and vicious and tense.
And mythic.
And they helped map new territory for me.
With Ripcord, I was less interested in tidy, easy-to-organize categories, less interested in comfortable resolutions, and more interested in what happens when addiction and violence and loss collide on seldom-traveled and dangerous roads, more interested in what must be sacrificed for the sake of survival, more interested in how the most frightening monsters are the ones we become in order to save someone we love.
And there it is.
That’s what Ripcord is all about.
As for labels?
It’s grindhouse, for sure, but it’s something more, something bigger.
I’m gonna call it mythic grindhouse.
Maybe that’s been coined by others, but I’m claiming it for myself.
For Ripcord.
Welcome to Nightmare Fuel, and a glimpse at my life.
This week, I became an ordained minister, so there’s that. May the power of Leviathan and Gargulthriux shine upon you and protect you. I would, heretofore, like to be referred to as RevBunn by the faithful.
It’s been a busy week. I’ve been writing scripts, doing livestreams, taking meetings, and running all over Missouri as my son performed in not one, not two, but three ensembles this week—his High School Orchestra, the Missouri State University Orchestra, and the Missouri All-State Orchestra. This is his fourth and final performance with Missouri All-State, an honor he worked hard to achieve. I couldn’t possibly be more proud of him.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time on trying to figure my life out. At the end of last year, I focused some time on this, and I came up with a plan for how I might move forward. Never one to settle for the best laid plans, I’ve decided to challenge almost every aspect of that plan, almost every aspect of what I’ve been doing for the past five years or so, almost every aspect of what I’ve been might be doing in the next five years.
Am I tearing up track? Maybe. The real focus is on seeing what elements of the plan hold water and which fall apart under scrutiny. I’ve been putting some real thought into this, scrutinizing ideas, asking very difficult questions, melting plans down and (hopefully) forging something better.
Stay tuned!
We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s motor!
While the first issue of Ripcord hits shelves this week, you can also order the limited edition Cold Open issues directly from Ignition Press. The Cold Open presents a new story that introduces the look and feel of the series. There are two Cold Open covers, both limited to 500 copies.
Write Through the Fear: A Dark and Hungry Place has surpassed its funding goal on Kickstarter! If you haven’t checked this project out, it is a solo journaling role-playing game. It presents a horror-filled solo RPG adventure in a haunted town. As players explore the mysterious locale, they are presented with writing prompts to help them complete a series of journal entries. As the story progresses, the journal becomes a unique artifact, building a complete tale of terror.
Gamers will enjoy exploring the strange town and facing a host of weird adversaries.
Writers will love the writing prompts as they develop a story that is true to them.
This zine will be offered in a few different formats—digital, paperback, and a hardcover (limited to 100 copies)!
The campaign only has a little over a week to go, So back the campaign now !
Two of my books, Jumpscare and Autumn Kingdom: Through the Blight have been selected for the Stoker Award preliminary ballot for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel. As ever, it is an honor to appear on the list. Author Scott Edelman reminds me that on a list of creators who have been nominated multiple times but never won, I have been officially nominated six times without a win. Should both of my graphic novels reach the ballot this time… and should both fail to bring home the prize once again… I will have been nominated without a win eight times, tying Scott himself for the most nominations without a win. It’s a comedy of riches in terms of dreams coming true.
This weekend, I’ll be heading to Neosho, Missouri, for ArtCon! It’s a one day con, the first of the year for me! I’m excited to be there. It’s always a great time! If you’re nearby, you should definitely make plans to come!
RIPCORD #1
The drug known as “Ripcord” has become the scourge of the world. It’s extremely addictive, and it doesn’t just alter your perception, it fundamentally alters who you are. Ripcord users have their whole bodies taken over by the substance, and it transforms them into mindless, frenzied killers who want nothing but to destroy. This makes every place the drug has grown popular dangerous.
Dillon is one of thousands who has lost a family member to Ripcord, but unlike so many others, she’s going to do something about it. Her sister has gone missing in the Outback, and Dillon is going to stop at nothing — and let nothing stop her — until she brings her home.
This latest foray into the darker depths of humanity from writer Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun, Deluge) is brought to vivid life by artist Aneke (DC Comics Bombshells, Bylines in Blood) and colorist Patricia Martin (Dune: The Graphic Novel). Ripcord is an ultraviolent exploitation comic in the vein of movies like Mad Max and Near Dark. Each issue features a cover by Jorge Fornes, the artist of Rorschach and Danger Street.
THE AUTUMN KINGDOM: THE WRAITHBOUND QUEEN #1
A STUNNING NEW CHAPTER OF THE DEATHLY DARK FAIRY TALE BEGINS! From masters of horror Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, The Sixth Gun) and Christopher Mitten (Hellboy and the B.P.R.D), follow two young sisters into a twilight realm haunted by faeries, monsters, and demons in a quest to rescue their parents from an eons-old blood sacrifice...
Kidnapped by the fae, sisters Sommer and Winter’s parents have disappeared behind the veiled walls of the Autumn Kingdom — mythical borderlands that their fantasy author father once thought were total fiction. Now, with the human world far behind them, their final conquest — and their father’s freedom — stands before them... behind a legion of goblins, trolls, and corrupted human souls...
Here’s a quick rundown of upcoming convention appearances, signings, and other events. Keep in mind, all appearances are subject to changes and cancellations.
February 7, 2026 - Art Con, Neosho MO
February 15, 2026 - Store Signing, Impulse Creations, Tulsa OK
March 27 - 29, 2026 - Planet Comicon, Kansas City MO
May 29 - 31, 2026 - Tremendicon, Springfield MO
June 5 - 7, 2026 - TBA
June 12 - 14, 2026 - TBA
July 18 - 19, 2026 - Heroes For Kids Comic Con, Perryville MO
September 24 - 26, 2026 - TBA
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Alright RevBunn, I see you. Hails and swing the alms! Seriously, congrats on that bold undertaking.
Looking forward to Ripcord. Train to Busan is just incredible. Mandy is just absurd and I just love the damned thing. The Hills Have Eyes, so long as it's not Part II from '85, which seems to be the turd that's finally flushed from the general eyesight, pun intended.