Author Matt Dinniman‘s Dungeon Crawler Carl has taken San Diego by storm this weekend with an offsite Audible activation, trolley wraps featuring cover art, panels, signings, and even a cosplay fan meetup. This week also had the surprise announcement that audiobook narrator Jeff Hays will be reprising his role as Princess Donut for the upcoming television adaptation on Peacock. The Beat had the opportunity to sit down for a quick roundtable interview with Dinniman and Hays.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Isaac Swindle: Dungeon Crawler Carl is known for putting characters in these incredibly over the top, absurd, just going right over the line scenarios, every single time. Why do you think that fans are resonating with that sheer absurdity right now? And what do you hope they take away from it? What do you think they’re taking away from your performance and your writing?
Matt Dinniman: Well, I hope they are having a good time. That’s what I hope they are taking away from it. And I hope they think about, you know, maybe it helps a single person think about how they treat people who are different than themselves, then maybe the whole thing will be worth it.
But I feel as if all media that we were subjected to was wrapped in bubble wrap. We have such fear of doing something that’s outside the realms of normal, that we don’t do it, like, “oh, I can’t do that. Can’t have a giant talking penis in the story, because that’s too stupid.”
So, I had this thing in my brain. Every time I think of something that I think, ‘That’s too dumb,’ I say, “Well, what if I take it a step further?” And that always works so far. I think that’s how we got the end of book eight. And I thought, you know, “Why not?”
So I do my best, you know. I’m not gonna take the easy, cheap jokes. I’m not gonna punch down, but I’m gonna do stupid shit. Because it’s funny, and it’s fun to write, and I think people are having fun too
Jeff Hays: I think I hope that people take the broader message seriously… That we are all gonna work together better if we realize how much more we have in common than what we have different from each other. And that the bigger entities, the much larger entities in our world, the corporations and governments, are always trying to pit us against each other in order to keep what they want. So don’t let them break us.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from SDCC ’26.
