For the last five months or so, MTV’s Splash Page have been all over Rick Remender like spit on my stubble. First they ran a story that his comic strip Fear Agent was in development as a movie; then that a Last Days of American Crime movie was also on the cards; and now, finally, that his porn-stars vs. the walking dead series XXXombies has also been tapped for adaptation into a screenplay. I thought we might as well do them all at once, eh?

All three comics have eminently marketable concepts, though XXXombies does seem a touch too similar to Zombies, Zombies, Zombies and Zombie Strippers to have much obvious novelty as a film. Thankfully, novelty has absolutely no bearing on the actual value of a work of art. After the crease, I’ll give a basic summary of the premise for each of the three films and share a few quotes from Remender.

Fear Agent: Heath Huston believes he is the last living member of the Fear Agents, the members of an elite organization he himself founded to overthrow alien invaders threatening the planet Earth. Huston is an alcoholic and his strongest relationship has been with his ship’s computer since his wife was apparently killed. He mashes up a lot of aliens. Later twists reveal a lot of things you can probably guess without even trying, but then more twists make those things more complicated than you were probably expecting. Remender said:

If I had my choice of the actor to play Heath Huston I’d say Jon Hamm or Aaron Eckhart.

The Last Days of American Crime: In 2016, the US government have perfect a kind of ’signal’ that will prevent all criminal impulses. Just days before it is due to be switched on, however, a newspaper discovers the plan and lets the public now. Graham Brick is a criminal currently caught up in a scam to make himself infinitely rich but when he finds out about the anti-crime signal, he rounds up some rough and tumble cohorts to carry out a heist and steal the government technology before it is switched on and it becomes impossible to steal at all. Radical Publishing are looking to turn the strip into a movie. Remender said:

I’ve agreed to write the screenplay, so this year I’m going to be neck-deep in the story. There are going to be a lot of Last Days of American Crime days for me.

XXXombies: Seemingly just the first part of a bigger series of horror comics called Crawl Space, XXXombies tells a simple porn stars vs. the undead story - what more do you need to know? Here’s a pub quiz question in the making: note that the porn director in the series is based upon Jeff Lebowski. Remender said:

Right now I’m writing a screenplay for XXXombies with Kieron Dwyer. The transition was smooth, because I took the script that I did and then Kieron and I broke it down into a treatment and did three or four passes to get the story perfect, and now it’s just a matter of breaking the treatment down and copying bits of dialogue from the comic script, rewriting, and new dialogue. I already know the characters and I know the story so the process is going very smoothly.

…and the machine that tries to turn all comics into films churns on, inefficient as ever. I dare say it’ll roll over Remender’s Black Heart Billy sometime soon.