My Summer Lair Chapter #335: When It Comes To The End Times Are You Only Reading The Headlines?
First Richard Bachman pops up in The Running Man.
Then later this month, his wife Claudia Inez, appears in Benjamin Percy’s serialized newspaper The End Times.
Big November for the Bachmans.
One of my favourite yet odd perks of hosting a pop culture podcast I stumble into strange how did I get here? moments.
Like the time I shared spicy nachos with Benjamin Percy back in 2017. To be able to sit down and talk about his writing, which I savor…while enjoying spicy nachos was utter delight.
Well, have I got breaking news for you, welcome back to My Summer Lair…author and comic book writer Benjamin Percy. Our conversation is attached.
The other day on the subway, three older gents boarded at three different stops in a row. Each gent would board the subway, sit down and promptly open a newspaper. Yes, three times in a row.
That’s a strange sight now, even though it used to be common.
Vinyl has had a notable resurgence.
VHS is still lingering like the undead…in the era of Netflix we still have video stories where you can rent movies on VHS and DVD.
Is it time for newspapers to make a comeback?
Enter The End Times.
The End Times is a serialized epistolary novel published by horror publisher, Bad Hand Books. Epistolary is a fancy pants word…the examples Ben gives is Dracula, that’s a classic and Carrie.
Another one is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They’re dispatches…typically letters between the characters or even diary entries. Sometimes they’re newspaper clippings.
This isn’t just a throwback to newspapers, it’s a throwback to Charlies Dickens who used to serialize his novels. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations was released weekly over 9 months (December 1860 to August 1861), with readers receiving a chapter or two each week. (Like orphans you can bet readers back then were like please Charles, can I have some more?)
The End Times written by Benjamin Percy is a post-apocalyptic narrative, which will release installments weekly over the course of a year starting on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.
This is a physical subscription, yes once again the paperboy will deliver post-apocalyptic news to your front door. Or it can be a digital subscription. I mean you’re doomscrolling anyways, right?
The End Times takes the form of a fictional newspaper run by a woman who discovers an old printing press 12 years after a pandemic nearly destroyed human civilization.
I dig those post-apocalyptic tales where humanity has been wiped out yet the all infrastructure is still up. Zombie apocalypse are typically like that…and that’s the way it is. Stephen King’s The Stand is another intact infrastructure apocalypse example.
The End Times carries all the benign hallmarks of a small-town newspaper: an editor’s note, birth announcements, classified ads, an events calendar and even a section on how to jar your own pickles.
The End Times will become a scrapbook of a crumbling world.
But as the story unfolds, the pickles are replaced by letters to the editor and guest columns by…Stephen King.
Ben teases Stephen King’s pen name for this project. And if you’ve been on The Long Walk with King you won’t “Bach” at the name Uncle Steve has chosen.
Ben has a lot of experience with a serialized format because he writes many Marvel comics. This MSL conversation opens with a celebration of his outstanding Wolverine 50 issue run.
- Wolverine — Wolverine: Volume 5 by Benjamin Percy and Juan Jose Ryp is the best arc in this fantastic series: good glorious gore: there’s more than 1 Dark Beast…Savage Wolverine, a secret assassin. The trade is fast paced that fits with Wolverine, the plot is deceptively simple.What Frank Miller did for Daredevil is what Benjamin Percy (and friends! Lots of incredible art along the way too! Just fantastic storytelling.) did for Wolverine. This is the run to end all runs. It’s staggeringly good. A haymaker of imagination with a roundhouse kick of outstanding art. This is the best Wolverine and it’s very nice.
- Ghost Rider — That series is like Supernatural meets EC Comics: It’s Marvel’s literal Hellblazer.
- Punisher — I’ve just started reading it. Always good to have Frank Castle back in business, cleaning up the mean streets.
- Predator — Predator vs. Wolverine, Predator vs. Black Panther and lately Predator Kills the Marvel Universe. So much ruckus. (Arnold survived the Predator but certain Marvel superheroes will not. That speaks volumes about Arnold’s impressive powers.)
Haven’t picked up Predator Kills the Marvel Universe. I’m wrapped up Predator vs Wolver and vs Black Panther. Percy writes some supa dupa Predator backstory…is all of that cannon?! These are such fun comics. - The Comet Cycle — Debris from a comet has upended Earth creating new industries, new enemies and because this is a Benjamin Percy book: new bodies. These are not comics but rather a trilogy of sci-fi novels with some charming X-Files elements including super powers. 2021’s The Ninth Metal (The Comet Cycle, #1), 2022’s The Unfamiliar Garden (The Comet Cycle, #2) and 2023’s The Sky Vault (The Comet Cycle #3). No pictures like the comic books but oh so worth checking out.
And now cue: The End Times, his boldest (and serialized) experiment yet.
Ben is a horror head and when he’s not writing he’s also directing horror. Check out 13th Night, an eerie horror short he recently released.
Try this Costco sample of his work.
This Fan Expo conversation with Benjamin Percy was brief but packed. I hope you check out his work across comics, novels, movies and now in a small town newspaper chronicling the apocalypse, called The End Times.
Now, then according to The Doomsday Clock it’s The End Times.
The End Times @ W • T • F
Host Sammy Younan
Recorded: Friday, August 22, 2025 at 1:30 pm (EST) at Fan Expo
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