Hi, all.
New from Chronicle Books: October 28, 2025.
Via Chronicle Books; Cover by Kyle Hilton
Over ten (oh no) years ago now, my good friend and many-times-over collaborator Sam Weiner and I published our first book, How To Win At Everything — a very funny, extremely joke-dense parody of self-help advice books that landed with a soft thud every time it was dropped by people who opened it hoping for a “real” book of “advice.”
The jokes, again, are very, very funny, but a lesson was learned, by us, and by our editor, Chronicle’s Steve Mockus, the godfather of the Worst Case Scenario Guide series, which was famous for being very dryly funny, but also full of extremely compelling and theoretically useful information on what to do if you stumble into quicksand or into the mouth of an alligator.
This lesson is that the average reader prefers real factoids to humor every time. My history-book-writing-wife can attest to this as she approaches book number eight, and I approach book number … do individual issues of Darkwing Duck count? Hmm, it says here, “No,” followed by “How dare you?”
There are few media enterprises more successful than The Worse Case Scenario Guide, but you could make the argument that Marvel Comics (and its subsequent cinematic spin-off universe) is one of them. Steve and I have worked together on superhero license projects since the How To Win days (like on a tremendously fun and bizarre book of D.C. comics-themed Christmas carols), but on his end, a new thought was brewing: What if you could combine the rabid reader appetite for real and useful tidbits of advice with the similarly rabid appetite for all things Marvel?
We think it would go a little something like this …
So You've Been Bitten by a Radioactive Spider: How to Survive the Marvel Universe
Via Chronicle Books; Cover by Kyle Hilton
(Via Chronicle)
The Marvel Comics Universe is full of action, adventure, danger, and cosmic peril. Be ready for anything with this illustrated action handbook—whether you have newly developed super-powers, you need to pilot an Iron Man suit, or Galactus is here to eat the Earth.
Kyle Hilton (via Chronicle).
Written by Marvel Comics and Emmy-nominated humor writer Daniel Kibblesmith, this official illustrated guide to surviving and thriving in the Marvel Universe uses comics-tested advice to steer readers through what to expect when exposed to gamma rays, bonding with a symbiote or—ow!—feeling an unexpected sting at the science fair. Featuring practical information such as wall-crawling tips, along with emergency information (you’ve been plunged into the Quantum Realm) and day-to-day guidance if your cat turns out to be a Flerken, you suspect someone of being a Skrull, or are facing a doombot, this is the must-have handbook as you live in the world of Marvel’s mightiest heroes.
Kyle Hilton (via Chronicle).
CRUCIAL ADVICE FROM MARVEL COMICS: What would you do if you discover you had mutant abilities, or are the only one on a heroic team without super-powers? Marvel comics writer and lifelong fan Daniel Kibblesmith finds inspiration and advice in the comics to offer tips and strategies for navigating these and many more of the reader’s own 'what if' experiences.
Kyle Hilton (via Chronicle).
IMAGINATIVE ADVENTURES: The Hulk is totally hulking out, with mayhem imminent; you’re weighing the pros and cons of legal representation from Matt Murdock or Jennifer Walters (or P.I. help from Jessica Jones or Howard the Duck); you need to speak Groot but are not fluent. This book has got you covered!
Perfect for:
Marvel fans looking for a fresh, funny spin on the comics
Fans of action hero handbooks and survival guides
Fans of Marvel Super Graphic, Marvel Mazes, and Thor and Loki: Midgard Family Mayhem
Format: Hardcover
Age Range: Chronicle Books
Publication Date: 10/28/2025
ISBN: 9781797233543
Why you should buy it.
Besides being, on its surface, clearly a perfect gift for yourself or the hopefully dozens of Marvel fans on your shopping list — this is also (weirdly) the most heavily researched thing I’ve ever written.
Obviously, I’m including a lifetime of reading Marvel comics and mainlining its animated, live-action, and pixelated ancillaries. But also from the perspective of absorbing actual information and figuring out how to synthesize it and repeat it back in a clear, yet amusing way (essentially the skillset I had to develop over my five years working at The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, R.I.P.). This is a book of facts. I worked on “vacations,” at wedding receptions, and at one point over Thanksgiving in an AirBNB with what I think was norovirus.
You probably know that the Hulk was bombarded with gamma rays and the Fantastic Four gained their powers from cosmic rays — but do you know the difference between the two? Stan Lee probably didn’t, but I do — and I learned it for this book. This project was a very conscious and overt attempt at creating the Chronicle Book I’ve been aiming for since How To Win — still extremely joke-dense (you’ll notice I didn’t say “funny,” because that is for the courts to decide), but also celebrating/capitalizing on a beloved property that Chronicle has the keys to (in this case, the Marvel Universe and its various Spider-Men and Captains both America and Marvel), and learning as much real world information as possible about how the Marvel universe might actually “work.”
For the chapter on piloting the Iron Man suit I put myself through a crash course (pun mega-intended) on the physics of flying a plane. For the chapter on wall-crawling, we invoked actual tips for recreational climbers. To prepare you for sharing your body with a Symbiote, I learned actual roommate mediation techniques. And Kyle Hilton’s crisp and timeless illustrations come into play with great clarity and benefit when he visually instructs you on how you to lift Thor’s hammer with your legs — they’re like reading Ikea instructions, but with the iconic, four-color magnetism of silver-age pin-ups.
Our goal is that the reader comes away from this book with a richer understanding and appreciation for all the Marvel Universe’s strangeness-yet-familiarity — this guiding thesis laid down by Lee & co. in 1962 that made the Marvel Universe itself. That, underneath the spandex, this universe is essentially our own.
This is a book about you. You have been bitten by a radioactive spider. Or become host to the Phoenix force. Or need to hire a superhero lawyer, or talk your way out of a jam in conversational Groot. So … what do you do next?
Find out October 28, 2025* by pre-ordering now.
* Frustratingly immediately after New York Comic-Con, which I will be attending (see you there).
- Daniel
