By Julian Gamboa
During the Dungeon Crawler Carl spotlight panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, series creator Matt Dinniman and TV producer Christopher Yost revealed that the series’ audiobook narrator, Jeff Hays, will be voicing the character Princess Donut in the upcoming live-action adaption from Peacock.
While no more details were revealed regarding the live action series, Dinniman gave some insight regarding his journey to becoming an author and the early stages of drafting Dungeon Crawler Carl. He said an early version of Dungeon Crawler Carl was delayed from being released due to its similarities to Stephen King’s Under the Dome and the general theme of isolation by alien capture.
Before becoming a writer, Dinniman said he would draw and sell commissions of people’s pet cats, and he apparently remained Etsy’s number one seller for many years.
Dinniman also shared how his readers affect his writing process. When writing the sequels to the first DCC book, he would reach out to his Patreon supporters for their input on certain character and story elements. According to him, they help to come up with small details and keep him ‘on track’ with the overall continuity of the series.
Dungeon Crawler Carl will come to an end with Book 9, which Dinniman described as “the hardest book I’ve ever had to write.” He explained that he’s kept a list of loose ends he wants to address with the final book and, while he has no plans to continue DCC after the announced conclusion, he does want to branch out into spinoffs based on side characters.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from SDCC ’26.
