Hollywood funnymen and comic book writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn spent some time with CBR TV during Comic-Con International in San Diego to talk about their take on Marvel's resident Merc with a Mouth, the inimitable Deadpool, how they landed the writing gig, the origins of the "Dead Presidents" arc and their long-term plans for the series.

On approaching "Deadpool" differently than previous writer Daniel Way: "I don't think we would take any job concerned about what went on before," said Posehn. "It's all about doing the book that we think is funny, the book we want to read, the book we want to write."

"We'd read [the old stuff] previously, so we had talked about some stuff and said, 'Maybe we shouldn't go back and re-read it' at that point," said Duggan. "Having read it, it was good enough and we started talking about new ideas. We submitted probably four or five in that first delivery and the one we didn't think they would say yes to ended up being the dead presidents."

On the origins of the Dead Presidents arc: "I think we talked about a 'Ghostbusters'-type comedy to open it up before things got a little more serious and dark," Duggan said. "I hate to sound so calculated, but we said, 'Hey, everyone's sick of politics, the presidential election is coming up and it's around Halloween.' We knew at that point that we had Tony [Moore] and we knew Tony was going to bring that to life. We thought, 'Let's do it.' Knowing that we had Tony and Geof Darrow, we wanted to do that for the first arc."

On plot elements that got rejected: "There hasn't been too many," said Posehn. "It's mostly legal stuff that they just can't do, like likenesses. Very early on, I wanted to kill the Kardashians. Who doesn't? I'm not the first person to want to kill the Kardashians."

"But we were in a position to do it," said Duggan.

"So we had them killed in the book and then we had to change it make them not the Kardashians," said Posehn. "I still kill women -- in the book! That's terrible!"

On the "Deadpool" inventory issues and their long-term plans for the book: "It feels like [we have a long-term plan] right now," said Duggan.

"We're like George Lucas," said Posehn. "Just wait! It's going to suck. We're really going to mess it up! You're going to be so mad."

"WIth the inventory issues, it was Jordan, our editor, had the idea to do an inventory issue," said Duggan. "A long time ago, Brian and I had a pitch called 'The Legends of Drunk Iron Man: The Armored Avenger's Most Intoxicating Tales.' They rightly said no, and they all laughed and said, 'Thanks for that. Great meeting.' That's how issue #7 happened and we figured out that if we were smart about it, we could create a past to Deadpool that didn't feel like it was forced in so hard. With these inventory issues, the only way to create the history is to go back. We're doing it gently and we're picking a new era every time."