Writing, eight days a week – Comic books, novels and scripts—Victor Gischler writes it all

My first assignment as a lowly intern at 225 was an interview with Victor Gischler about his then-most recent B-movie style novel, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse.

Years later, as I perused the comic books, I saw Gischler’s name pop up everywhere. The Baton Rougean was writing for Marvel’s Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth and had a run on one of my favorites X-Men.

I caught up with Gischler a few weeks ago. To my surprise, he’s busier than I had imagined. His time at Marvel might be done for now. However, he keeps writing—horror stories, comic book scripts, novels and much more.

“If I’m awake, I’m supposed to be writing,” he says in the midst of a pause from the computer screen.

His latest book, an epic fantasy Ink Mage, was released in October. Amazon is publishing it as a serial under its imprint 47North. At the same time, Gischler is prepping quite the résumé—a run onThe Shadow for Dynamite Comics, and Angel and Faith based off characters from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer for Dark Horse Comics. His creator-owned Kiss Me, Satan at Dark Horse is garnering critical acclaim. And, deep breath, he is also working on a script for an Italian comic book publisher Panini Comics.

For Gischler, being a comic book writer was always in the plans.

“It was a long time coming,” he says. “When I was a kid through age 15, I was big into comics. I set them aside for a good long while. Then, I started getting back into reading them.”

Through his agent, Gischler’s work landed in front of an editor at Marvel. Unlike the smaller comic book companies, Marvel has its hands entirely in the process, not wanting to mess up its creations. Writing X-Men was a bit difficult for him, but not inappropriately so, he says.

“It’s [Marvel’s] characters, their book,” he says. “They want it a certain way, but not in a way that I would object. These are characters that a lot of readers know. They have expectations. There’s a level of intimidation that comes with that. Your audience becomes one person, and that’s the editor. I told myself that I would write for one guy, the editor—the expert. If he’s happy, I would count that as a win.”

On Deadpool, a mercenary character who is known for his crass sense of humor, Gischler was able to inject a directional dose of himself.

Working with Dark Horse, Gischler is able to write in known characters worlds as well as create his own stories. There, he did a five-issue run with Spike, a character from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. His work garnered him a slot writing for Angel & Faith, another spin-off based on characters from the hit show.

“[Dark Horse] put me on one of their big books,” he says. “But part of the package is that I’ve written two of my own books. I feel like I found a home there. I’ve got a third thing on the editor’s desk.”

And Gischler keeps on writing.

“When the mortgage is coming due, the creative juices flow pretty well,” he says, laughing. “Seriously, though, I do like getting excited about something when it’s a project I like. I have a genuine excitement about it, beyond the ability to pay the bills.”