Word Balloon Comics Podcast Genre Splicing The Van Jensen Experience
Jan 21, 2026
48:00
Van Jensen joins Word Balloon for a wide-ranging conversation about genre, adaptation, and why the best stories don’t play it safe. We dig into God Fall, Van’s epic, faith-shaking fantasy novel series that’s now being developed as a television project by Ron Howard and Imagine. Van breaks down what drew Hollywood to the property, how the story’s mix of theology, rebellion, and cosmic war translates to the screen, and what he hopes survives the adaptation intact.
From there, we zoom out on Van’s knack for genre splicing—stories that take familiar frameworks and twist them into something sharper and stranger. That includes his IDW comic Godzilla: Heist, which turns the King of the Monsters into the centerpiece of a crime caper, and his take on Pinocchio, which leans far closer to the original, darker fairy tale than the softened Disney version most people know. It’s a conversation about respecting myth, bending expectations, and trusting readers—and viewers—to follow bold ideas wherever they lead.
From there, we zoom out on Van’s knack for genre splicing—stories that take familiar frameworks and twist them into something sharper and stranger. That includes his IDW comic Godzilla: Heist, which turns the King of the Monsters into the centerpiece of a crime caper, and his take on Pinocchio, which leans far closer to the original, darker fairy tale than the softened Disney version most people know. It’s a conversation about respecting myth, bending expectations, and trusting readers—and viewers—to follow bold ideas wherever they lead.