Marvel's Deadpool is a character that can excite fans, make them laugh, cry, and horrify them… sometimes all at the same time. That cocktail of intense emotions are a large part of the reason why Wade Wilson’s adventures on both the comic page and silver screen have resonated with so many people.

It’s also a formula that writer Gerry Duggan and his artistic collaborators used to create a diverse and crazy batch of stories during his six year tenure on Marvel’s main Deadpool title. The writer recently brought his record breaking run on the character to a close with May's The Despicable Deadpool #300, and now he’s working on a new creator-owned series for Image Comics with the same emotional “sweet and sour” combination that made his run on Deadpool so memorable.

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In Analog, Duggan and artist David O’Sullivan chronicle the adventures of Jack McGinnis, a man who makes a dangerous living as a courier in a dystopian near-future world where secrecy on the internet is no longer possible. Two issues of the series have been released so far, and a feature film adaptation is currently in the works at Lionsgate with Chad Stahelski attached as director.

With Analog #3 in comic stores today, CBR spoke with Duggan for a look back at his run on Deadpool and into the future of Analog.The writer also talked about how the writers of Deadpool 2 paid tribute to his run by name-dropping him in the movie.

CBR: I imagine you've been wrapped on Deadpool for a while, but how does it feel now that your final issue has been out for a couple weeks? Is Wade a character you might want to return to some day? Do you miss him?

Gerry Duggan: I made my peace with saying goodbye to Wade at the end of last year. The bulk of the real writing was done around Thanksgiving.

I hope I'll have been as good to Wade as he was to me. I don't know how that could be true, but he is sincerely a character that I really don't want to write again. [Laughs] Never say never, though.

I loved every minute of working on the character, but what I really loved was the collaboration. And truthfully, nobody will miss me. I know a little bit about what Skottie Young and his collaborators are up to and the long game that they're going to play. So let the new era begin! I'm really excited to return to just being a fan of Wade.

You've written more issues of Deadpool than any other writer. Did you mean to set a record with the character? And what was it about Deadpool that kept him such an interesting character for you?

The truth is that we didn't think we'd be around at all. We added Doctor Strange to issue #3 of my first volume of Deadpool because we thought if we get cancelled before we come out, at least I will have written a little Doctor Strange.

So nobody is more surprised than me that we had staying power, but the truth is I think I'll always get credit for a lot of people's hard work on the book. I always feel that it's a visual medium and I was just one piece of that puzzle. You'd have to single out Jordan D. White, our editor. He was on there since before I got there.

Even though I have written the most issues of Deadpool, and that record will be broken some day, the movie guys have been writing the character for longer. They started a couple years before me. Now, granted they have two films and I have 125 issues, depending on how you really count the stuff. But my admiration for everyone who has written Deadpool is sincere and true.

It really feels like Deadpool was a mountain that was built slowly by others over the years. The folks that came before me made him popular and then I sort of got to walk up and do my thing at the top of a mountain. It really was a labor of love from people like Joe Kelly, Gail Simone, Daniel Way and everyone who ever had a hand in him, like Rick Remender who wrote him in Uncanny X-Force. My inheritance was rich.

You had a number of different artistic collaborators on Deadpool, but I believe your most prolific ones were Mike Hawthorne and Scott Koblish, correct?

Yes. Mike is the current world record holder for most Deadpool pages. I don't even think it's close actually. I think it would take some time for someone to draw more Deadpool than he has.

When I was asked to pitch a mini with Hawkeye and Deadpool is when Matteo Lolli came into our lives, and really the three of them became this murder's row of talent. It's hard to have consistency on a book, but I think Marvel really is returning to an era of authorship for artists. I think that you'll especially see that in the C.B. Cebulski era. That was something all our Deadpool artists hopefully feel like they left their mark. They turned down a lot of other job opportunities over the years to stay on Deadpool, and I'll forever be grateful for that.

Your run had many different eras and long-running stories. Looking back, what are some of your favorite things that you and your collaborators did on Deadpool?

I'm proud of all of it, but I think there are few things that really stand out.

I quit Deadpool for the first time after “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” I was convinced to stay around and I think that was obviously the right decision, but at the time I thought that story felt like a special way to go out. It would have been a year of Deadpool and it felt like that we already an embarrassment of riches. So that experience is a standout.

Then I think of these stories in terms of how fun they were to make. I don't go back and revisit them too much, but I remember laughing at all the stuff Scott Koblish would bring to the table. He was so underrated as a funny person. You need to have comic timing in order to draw a lot of the stuff that he did. We'd give these guys assignments and they'd make so much of it look easy like all of the stuff we did with Mike Hawthorne over the years

Another standout era for me would be the ending. Because I knew Secret Empire was coming, I knew I could burn Wade down and be the arsonist. Usually a writer leaves a book and sort of watches from afar as things are set on fire. I got to be that guy, though. So I really took advantage of the situation. For a hot minute I was actually against Secret Empire because I had just done all of this work to sort of align Wade with Cap. Then I realized that was my jumping off point! I used that fire to burn Wade in a great way. So The Despicable Deadpool felt like such a good third act.

That happening was another bit of good luck for me. It allowed me to sort of really cleanse Wade and also pass the Deadpool I inherited to Skottie, which was a gun, some swords, and the open road in front of him. Skottie even gets to decide what Wade will remember now. I was happy to give him the freedom to use stuff from our run, or totally ignore it. I think fans are going to be really excited by what he's cooked up.

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You contributions to Deadpool were recently honored in a pretty big way by having a street named after you in the Deadpool 2 feature film. Did you know that was in the script?

It's funny, I admire those guys [Deadpool and Deadpool 2 screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick] so much. We'd talk a little bit behind the scenes from time to time, and Rhett Reese gave me a heads up that they had “hid” my name in the movie. So I went into the show thinking I was going to have to wear my glasses and keep my eyes peeled. They didn't really do such a good job of hiding it though. [Laughs] I laughed over how overt it was.

Those guys honored me in a big way. It was so much fun to hear my name up on the big screen, but I'm really impressed by what they've done with Wade. They can keep their own council about writing him. They've been doing it longer than anyone. I really admire what they've now done with two films.

I've had some experience with trying to get movies up and running, and getting a film made seems like a miracle. And getting a film made that's as enjoyable as either of those films feels like a miracle to the tenth power. They've bottled lightning twice now.

A funny and interesting side note to that is I saw on Twitter all of the different variations that people thought they heard. It just made me think that people are such terrible witnesses. They came away with things like Gerry Duggan Road or Gerry Duggan Lane. Very few people actually got Gerry Duggan Parkway.

I was reading Michelle McNamara's book, I'll Be Gone In the Dark, and in it she talks about how over time witness statements can start to conflict, but these are people who just walked out of a movie and tweeted right away about what they thought they heard. [Laughs]

Speaking of feature films, your current creator owned Image Comic series Analog is in development over at Lionsgate. It also now also has a director, Chad Stahelski, who directed the first John Wick film. So it sounds like the adaptation is in a good place, and has a great person to helm it. How does it feel to have a film adaptation of creator-owned project you just kicked off already in development?

It feels great. David and I have been working on Analog since 2015. We knew we wanted to bank the first three to four issues and maybe the first trade, but after the election I said to David, “The world is changing enough now that this is not really sort of a left field idea. We really need to publish.”

And when we published things started to happen pretty quickly. Ryan Condal is a friend and a wonderful writer. He's been a wonderful collaborator. He actually optioned out of his own pockets one of my other creator-owned books with Phil Noto called The Infinite Horizon. He wrote a wonderful screenplay, and that's in development at Warner Bros. with Greg Berlanti.

Ryan wanted to talk with me about Analog and then one thing lead to another. He pitched the material to Chad, and Chad totally dug it. They were busy prepping John Wick 3, which he's now shooting. So, now the fun begins. The hard part was climbing that hill, which we just did. We found a great partner in Lionsgate. They're very happy to have Chad aboard. I believe every film Chad has directed has been a Lionsgate feature. So this is all in the family for him. And Ryan and I will go away and collaborate for a bit. He'll then write the script, and hopefully this will be the next thing that Chad gets to shoot. So, maybe 2019. Cross your fingers for us. It’s a really exciting opportunity to be in business with some creative people that we really admire.

Based on the two issues that have been released so far it feels like Analog is a series that blends the sort of “sweet and sour” elements that I thought were key components of your Deadpool run. It feels like it would be a good book for fans of your work on Deadpool, who have yet to try a creator-owned book, to jump on to.

I sure hope so! I have hope that Deadpool fans would follow me next door to Analog, but I also know that not everyone who is into mainstream comics is necessarily into creator-owned ones. I also think that's true in the reverse. I think I have Analog readers who have never read a Deadpool issue. So it's always funny how the market feels like a different readership. You'd hope that if there is someone who adores what we did on Deadpool that they would give us a shot. Jack, our protagonist, is nothing like Wade. I do agree though that the sort of key flavors of my Deadpool run were sad and funny or funny and fucked up. And Analog is definitely that!

[Laughs] In this initial five-issue arc of Analog, it feels like you're setting up this dystopian near future world while having lots of fun with the classic P.I. trope of a protagonist up against numerous and very powerful enemies.

Yes! I'm loving that. It's such a joy to move Jack and his partner Oona through this world. To flesh out a world as rich as I think what David is doing with Analog is a real joy. There are days when I'm writing Analog that it feels like we're making the worst of our world possible. Then there are other days where I go, “Oh no, this place is a total dream.” Playing with the tones of the book like that is what's fun.

We are doing a trade of our first five issues, and we're going to keep it at an entry-level price point. It will be $9.99. So I hope if there's anyone who's been sleeping on the book that they jump in. We'll have the trade out for New York Comic Con. We'll also have the first issue of the book I'm doing with John McCrea. So that will be the coming out party for both Dead Rabbit and the Analog trade.

RELATED: Gerry Duggan Discusses His Plans for the Infinity Stones & Their Wielders

Finally, A lot of creator-owned series do take a break in between arcs. Will there be a significant break between issues #5 and #6 of Analog?

We're still trying to work that out now, but I think at the most it will be the standard 30 days. So, there's a small chance that we won't have a break at all. We might try to drop the trade and issue #6 in October. My guess though is issue #6 will be arriving after a short break to let David get ahead just a bit.

I want to wrap by thanking everyone over the years for their support. There was always a lot of good Deadpool to read, and the readers showed up for us. And whenever someone thanks me for my contributions I'm always quick to point out that it was only possible because of what the readers did by adding us to your pull lists or keeping us in business by buying trades. So sincerely, thank you! And if you like what you read of our Deadpool try Analog. David, our colorist Jordie Bellaire, and our cover designer Mike Spicer have really done some great work. It's worth it for their contributions alone.

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Official Solicitation Text

CHAPTER THREE-Jack's partner Oona crashes a meeting of white nationalists and ends up making a real mess. Mostly of them, but also for herself. Jack's got to get a briefcase to Tokyo on time, but he's not gonna leave her to twist in the wind. Plus, Jack's new nemesis in our government keeps the heat on.