At Anime NYC 2026, the Anime Herald sat down with comics writer Pat Shand for a wide-ranging conversation about how a kid writing sequels on his mother’s typewriter found his way into professional comics — and what keeps him writing them.
Pat Shand (Credits: Anime Herald)
Shand says he always wanted to write. As a kid, he devoured R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and would hammer out two-page sequels on his mom’s typewriter — once even deciding that when Stine passed away, he, at seven years old, would simply take over the series. He fell in love with stories and then kept continuing them himself, from Goosebumps to Harry Potter.
From Fan Fiction to His Own Worlds
As his skills grew, the fan fiction became thinly veiled fan fiction. In seventh grade, obsessed with Dragon Ball Z, he wrote his own version — Wishtones — casting his friends as the characters. Gradually, he started writing fully original stories: short stories in literary magazines, produced plays and skits, feeling out which writing industry would have him. Theater, film, comics — he was interested in all of it.
His first comics gig was, by his own description, a dream gig: writing Angel at IDW. He used those two pages as a stepping stone, pushing himself toward working full-time in comics.
Why Long-Form Stories Hooked Him
The first comic Shand ever read was Creepshow, by Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson — a horror-driven story that spoke directly to the Goosebumps fan in him. But the creators who truly inspired him were the ones telling long, creator-run sagas: in his early twenties, he discovered Brian K. Vaughan juggling Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, and realized comics were not just a place for long-form superhero stories — there was room for new creations told over years.
That idea — being able to grow a story, and grow with it — is what appealed to him most. It is a fitting philosophy for a writer who started by extending other people’s stories and ended up building his own.
Shand’s trajectory — from writing sequels on a typewriter to writing licensed comics to building original work — mirrors how many creators actually break in: not through one big break, but through a series of smaller ones that add up. His affection for long-form storytelling, shaped by discovering creators like Vaughan at exactly the right age, shows in a career built on series meant to be read in full, not just skimmed issue to issue.
Also Read: More anime news on Our Insane Blogs
Source: Anime Herald — read the full story there.
