Directly contravening the first two rules that he himself came up with, writer Chuck Palahniuk has been talking about carrying on the story of Fight Club next year. Not in the form of another book, however, or a big screen sequel from director David Fincher - nope, Fight Club 2 is going to be a comic book. Specifically, a 10-issue maxiseries illustrated by Cameron Stewart that Dark Horse will publish start in 2015. The story continues eighteen years after the book and - wait, Fight Club came out eighteen years ago? Boy, do we feel old now. The press release, which came out ahead of the book's official announcement at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend (Palahniuk accidentally leaked the news during a recent public appearance), says that the comic "takes place alternately in the future and the past. It picks up a decade after the ending of his original book, where the protagonist is married to equally problematic Marla Singer and has a 9-year-old son named Junior, though the narrator is failing his son in the same way his dad failed him." It looks like things won't have changed that much for our nameless narrator, played in the film by Edward Norton, as he sees the return of an old "friend". The release continues: "At the same time, Palahniuk says readers will have an idea of Tyler's true origins. 'Tyler is something that maybe has been around for centuries and is not just this aberration that's popped into his mind.'" Along with these revelations over Tyler Durden the series also features most of the characters from the first book, including the terrorist organisation Project Mayhem, which "still has its hooks in the narrator as he has to save his boy when the youngster's life is in peril." Colour us...cautiously optimistic? Especially because artist Cameron Stewart is on board, and Palahniuk has shown that he's self-aware about seeming to be going back to the well. The sequel will include a section where the narrator goes to an old fight club, looking to "go back and reclaim that phase of his life, and is just a pathetic failure." We sort of thought Palahniuk had said everything he needed to in the first book, but these teasing tidbits - along with that piece of promotional art by David Mack seen above - have got is intrigued. We'll no doubt learn more this weekend after Comic-Con, unless the author decides to spill some more beans before then...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
