Why the Pushing Daisies Comic Book Series Was Canceled

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, find out why we've never received the Pushing Daisies comic book sequel that was promised for years.

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and twenty-fourth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

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COMIC LEGEND:

Wildstorm nearly published a wrap-up series for the acclaimed short-lived TV series, Pushing Daisies.

STATUS:

True

Pushing Daisies was an excellent television series that sadly lasted only two seasons on ABC between 2007 and 2009, but honestly, the series was so offbeat that it is pretty impressive that it was made into a TV series period. Creator Bryan Fuller was already known as a clever and offbeat TV creator, having created Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, for Showtime and Fox, respectively. After a stint as a writer on the hit superhero series, Heroes, Fuller then created Pushing Daisies.

The concept for the show was that future MCU villain Lee Pace played Ned, a piemaker who had the ability to bring things back to life, but he can only bring them back for a minute before bad things happen. Plus, since his touch brings them back to life, his touch also kills them again, so for instance, he uses his powers to make the fruit in his pies super ripe, but as a result, he can't eat the pies himself or else the fruit would rot again.

In any event, a private investigator learns of Ned's powers so he convinced Ned to use them to help him solve murders (by animating the dead people long enough for them to give clues as to how they were killed). Things are complicated when Ned revives his childhood love, Chuck (Anna Friel), who had been murdered. Ned can't bring himself to re-kill her, so they begin to date, but Ned can never actually TOUCH Chuck or else she'll die again. So Chuck helps Ned and Emerson (the private investigator) in solving more crimes, including her own murder.

There is also Ned's eccentric waitress at the pie shop, Olive, and Chuck's eccentric aunts, Vivian and Lily.

The series always had some ties to comic books, as when it debuted, they did a special comic book for San Diego Comic-Con...

Tim Sale did the other cover...

When the TV series was canceled, Bryan Fuller said that he planned to continue the series as a comic book. That was not a crazy idea, of course, but at the same time, people say stuff like that all of the time and I don't know if people really held out much hope in it actually happening.

However, Fuller really did follow up on in and in 2011 (CBR reported on it back then), Fuller revealed the first couple of pages from the comic, which would be about a flood causing a bunch of bodies to be disinterred and Ned touches them and when they find out the situation, they want to kill Ned before he can touch them and make them be dead again, so it was a sort of dark zombie comic...

However, the comic book never came out. In 2012, artist Chris Gugliotti, who was working on the project, posted a note he received from Fuller when the project began and he noted how said he was seeing this note now.

When a reader asked him more about it, Gugliotti explained, "

-send messages to DC via the 'Contact Us' web form on their website. I wanted to see if you have any insight into this- anyone in particular people could write to or even if you think there's a chance this might work? I'm dying to see the rest of that comic and hopefully see more from the world of Pushing Daisies! Have fun at the rest of Comic Con and hope that foot feels better!! -Lisa

Part of it is that it was being published through DCs Wildstorm brand which sadly doesn’t exist anymore. It became DC digital when they opened the new offices in Burbank. The editor I was working with at the time is no longer there. I’ve never met Bryan Fuller but he sent me a big basket of daisy and tombstone shaped cookies and a lovely note when we started the project. I was hoping for a pie when we finished. :(

Here are some of Gugliottio's unpublished pages (check out his site here for more)...

Gorgeous work...

In 2013, Fuller talked about possibly using Kickstarter to do a Pushing Daisies project and the idea he used for the plot is pretty much the comic book plot:

If we were able to pull off the Kickstarter, there’s a very fun zombie film that starts with a flash-flood in a cemetery and basically is about those denizens of that cemetery having to kill Ned before he can kill them, so it’s a different kind of zombie movie.

And just five years ago, Fuller talked to Vanity Fair about possibly doing more Pushing Daisies...

“I still would love to do Pushing Daisies as a Broadway musical,” says Fuller. “I’d love to see it return as a mini-series for Netflix, Apple, or Amazon, or whoever would pick it up. I love these actors. I love Lee Pace like a brother. I love Anna Friel like a sister. Chi McBride is such a wonderful ball of light that can only be matched by Kristin Chenoweth’s ball of light.”

And Fuller’s not just paying lip service, either: “I ask Warner Brothers every year to see if they’d be open to it. There are some obstacles there as far as revitalizing it as a television show, but like I said, I’d love to see it as a Broadway musical. I can just imagine Tim Minchin’s lyrics, can’t you? If you’re reading this article, Tim, call me!”

The fact that he didn't mention the comic book at all sure seems to suggest that that comic book project is dead. However, I guess if anyone could bring a project back from the dead....