Waiting For The Worm To Come

by Vince Brusio

It’s like that Pink Floyd song on The Wall. Waiting for the worms to come. To smash in your windows, and kick in your doors. That’s pretty much going to be the action on the ground for Ben Templesmith’s Wormwood Gentleman Corpse: Mr. Wormwood Goes To Washington (JUL170647) from IDW Publishing. When a creature from a hell dimension wears a corpse suit to walk among us, not much good can happen — and that’s the fun part. In a mish mash maggot meat pie cooked over hellfire, Wormwood is about to roast some politicians…and laugh about it. After all, some would say it’s hard to tell the difference between a corpse and a politician. Neither tend to be popular among the little people.

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Vince Brusio: As the adventures of Wormwood are infrequent, can you give us a bit of a primer for readers who may be new to the title? Wormwood is a trans-dimensional demigod worm, but what does that mean? What’s his purpose for walking, talking, and burrowing in someone’s head?"

Ben Templesmith: Ahah, well luckily an omnibus of all previous Wormwood came out last year, but basically Wormwood is an immortal worm from a hell dimension. Most dimensions are hellish, which is why he likes hanging out in ours mostly — plus the beer and cigarettes. Wormwood can inhabit corpses like suits, yet appear normal to everyone else around him. He's been around for most of human history, knows far too much about everything, and gets up to mischief averting the various problems that come from other dimensional beings and creatures that come to wreck the joint. And since every god that's ever been believed in actually exists, that's quite a lot. He's kind of like Doctor Who, Constantine, and Hellboy rolled into one, but with more alien genital jokes.

Vince Brusio: The book isn’t solicited as a mini-series, so we’re going to go with it’s an ongoing series, correct? Or is it that you’re going to run with this until you feel that it’s run its course?  You won’t wrap things up until everyone is sufficiently burnt to a crisp. How many issues are already in the can, then? How long do you plan to torture us?"

Ben Templesmith: No it's a mini-series. Three books. All completed already via my patrons on the Patreon website where they get to see me develop all my books now. I don't have the schedule or the stamina to do an endless ongoing. Don't like the model or the deadline stress. Plus, I like keeping stories manageable and just keep adding when I'm ready. But I have a few other stories for Wormwood coming when there's time.

Vince Brusio: The New York Journal of Books is said to have written that Wormwood is a full course meal of “horror, humor, adventure, and sci-fi.” Ok: humor and horror together. Got it. We’ve seen Evil Dead 2 and Shaun of the Dead. But sci-fi and adventure as well? That’s a full plate, to say the least. No room for dessert after all of that. So why are there so many ingredients in this maggot meat pie?"

Ben Templesmith: Wormwood is just a mish mash of everything I love growing up rolled into one really. I basically created the property in high school. And with a multiverse, technically everything exists, so I can really put him in anything I want. 

Vince Brusio: The title of this book is “Mr. Wormwood Goes To Washington.” Given the current state of politics in the U.S., some would say that Wormwood would fit right in, and might even walk around unnoticed, given the vitriol that we hear at press conferences. So is Wormwood going to expedite fake news we haven’t seen yet? Is that the plan? Or is he going to try and outdo Frank Underwood from House of Cards?"

Ben Templesmith: The book was actually completed during the election but before the outcome. It's really just a comment on the congress more than anything else, which remains less popular than cockroaches. So it's pretty bipartisan in that respect. Although the folks who tend not to like science, history and basic facts tend to not come off too well. I get quite a few digs in, and it's a bit of a toss-up as to who the villain in the series actually is. 

Vince Brusio: How does working on this book fit into your wheel house? You’ve done plenty of horror in your career. Who hasn’t read 30 Days of Night? But this is you, Ben Templesmith, solo. So how does it sit with you working alone versus with another writer like Steve Niles? What’s the advantage or disadvantage when it comes to things like how best to promote or market the book?"

Ben Templesmith: Well, I'm horribly independent, so I like just doing my own thing, though working with other creators is always fun. I can just do a book more organically when it's just me. And only show stuff when it's ready. Which, considering the entire mini-series is already completed, makes more time for promoting later on!

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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.