Fred Van Lente burst onto the scene with his first collaboration with cartoonist Ryan Dunlavey, Action Philosophers, which the NYT called “intensely goofy but intellectually rigorous” and has been nominated for a 2025 Ringo Award for Best Humor Comic. From there, he went on to a long career at Marvel, where he worked on titles like The Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, and Marvel Zombies. He’s also written for DC, Archie Comics, Dark Horse, BOOM! Studios, Dynamite Entertainment, and Valiant, where his run on Archer & Armstrong was nominated for a Harvey Award for Best Continuing Series.

In 2025, he published amusement-park slasher Murder Kingdom (Mad Cave), his cyberpunk epic The Future Is ******, and the much-lauded, Ringo-nominated Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games with Tom Fowler (Clover Press).