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The series creator tells EW how he embraced pulp for this continuation of the Spear and Fang story. Primal season 3 first look reveals zombie Spear: Genndy Tart

The series creator tells EW how he embraced pulp for this continuation of the Spear and Fang story.

Primal season 3 first look reveals zombie Spear: Genndy Tartakovsky confirms 'it's not a reboot'

The series creator tells EW how he embraced pulp for this continuation of the Spear and Fang story.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

EW's editorial guidelines

October 9, 2025 7:00 p.m. ET

Zombie Spear roars in 'Primal' season 3. Credit:

- Genndy Tartakovsky unveils his *Primal* season 3 concept three years after the season 2 finale.

- The creator explains how he embraced pulp stories like *Conan* and *Solomon Kane* to deliver a story about zombie Spear.

- "It's not a reboot, it's none of those things," he clarifies.

Genndy Tartakovsky is ready to unveil the mystery idea he cooked up for *Primal* season 3.

Dedicated fans of the *Dexter's Laboratory* and *Samurai Jack* creator have waited three years to find out what's in store for this dialogue-less, animation-focused adult drama about Neanderthal Spear (Aaron LaPlante) and his prehistoric T-rex companion, Fang (Joel Valentine). The season 2 finale, which premiered in September 2022, killed off Spear himself after a battle with a Viking chieftain. The episode then left us with a lingering image of Spear and Fang's children together.

There was also talk of the show perhaps moving to an anthology format, so...where does the story go from here? Well, *Primal* season 3 is a zombie Spear story.

Tartakovsky made the reveal at a New York Comic Con panel Thursday night, which also brought the first-look teaser and news of a January 2026 premiere. Prior to the big announcement, the creator sat down with ** to discuss what this all means.

**: Is this an undead Spear story?**

**GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY:** Yeah! He's a zombie. I'm not gonna talk about how he became one. We'll obviously reveal it in the show. I finished the [season 2] story and I was moving on. Then I started to have second thoughts. I just spent 20 episodes having people care, and then I kill off the main character, which is okay, but then, what are my options? The other stuff I was doing wasn't feeling quite right, maybe because I hadn't finished the story. And because we had that "Plague of Madness" episode in the first season where it was a zombie dinosaur, this is part of our world. It's pulp. It's the ultimate pulpy thing, the undead.

**Are we still in the real world of *Primal* or are we in the underworld? There are so many images in that teaser trailer, especially the ending with a giant fly. Is this an otherworldly dimension?**

No, no. What's great about it is it flows right to the next. So it's in the same world, same everything. There's dinosaur and man, then there's different civilizations, and then now there's this thing happening. I imagine this world has a lot of different parts, and some parts aren't discovered. Some people don't go into other parts because they know [not to]. So it's this f---ed up world that's really crazy, and now we've entered this part, but you feel like it's the same show. It's amped up and the story's crazy, but it feels like you're watching a *Primal* episode. It's not a reboot, it's none of those things.

Zombie Spear fights a lion on 'Primal' season 3.

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**Are there specific pulp eras that inspired what you're going for here?**

For me, it's really the Robert E. Howard writings. Once I read *Conan*, I was like, "This is so much more than I ever imagined *Conan* to be." Then I dove into everything that he wrote. He wrote Western stories, he wrote boxing stories, he wrote these weird 19th-century sailor stories in the Barnaby Coast that were amazing, and then *Solomon Kane*. Probably *Solomon Kane* was the biggest [influence] besides *Conan*, this kind of mashup of puritan warrior priest and vampires and monsters and the undead and all these things.

**Do you consider season 3 still like a Spear and Fan story?**

It's a continuation. Without giving everything away, it's still about them. So we'll have to see how he makes it back to the family. Does the family accept him? What happens? Does he even know who he is? When you're undead, you're not necessarily, "Oh yeah! I was Jim." Your brain is dead, possibly. So there's all these questions that need to be answered.

**We were left with that image at the end of season 2 of Spear and Fang's children picking up the mantle. Is it fair to say the season 3 story still involves those characters?**

It involves all the same characters that we've known from the second season. Without expanding on it, yeah, they're still around.

Zombie Spear faces a giant fly on 'Primal' season 3.

**In terms of animation, are different things inspiring you this time around? It was giving very Salvador Dalí vibes with the shots of trees melting and this giant fly emerging out of nowhere.**

We got to explore different things. Because he's a zombie, it lent itself to something more, I don't know if metaphysical is the right word, or just more trippy. We could really become a little bit more abstract in our storytelling and create crazy moods and feelings and really play with your emotions. That's what's great about it. It's really emotional.

**In the past, when you talked about a season 3 in various interviews, the impression I got was that season 3 could potentially be the final season. Has a decision been made about that yet?**

No. *Primal* is probably the purest 12-year-old Genndy thing I've ever done. It really speaks to me, and this is exactly the kind of show I would wanna watch. It's what I've trained myself to do from *Dexter* until now, and it's the best expression of that. So for me, boy, if the world supports it, I'd love to have *Primal* as the brand, and then every maybe one, two seasons it changes up. What I started to develop...I was like, creation is interesting to me. I was trying to figure something out [with] a female alien, Adam and Eve-type of thing: two creatures born into this world, and we're with them and we *are* them, and they discover the world, how crazy it is with us. It didn't click beyond that 'cause it felt like the first season of *Primal*. What's different about it? I couldn't find an answer for that. But the goal is to continually do this type of low-dialogue or no-dialogue storytelling that's based on visuals. It's hardcore and it's pulpy and it's got all those things going for it.**

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*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*

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