Before he was the leader of the Saviors, before he played the world’s most stressful game of tic-tac-toe, before he was one of the deadliest men ever to inhabit the world of The Walking Dead, Negan was something else entirely. We know the laundry list of terrible things Negan has done since his infamous introduction in The Walking Dead #100, but we had no idea what the charismatic killer did before the world became overrun by undead hordes remained a mystery — until now.

According to ComicBook.com, Image Comics released a preview of Here’s Negan, a 48-page prequel comic that tells the story of what Negan did before the apocalypse, as well as how he rose to power and acquired his signature barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat, Lucille. And now, thanks to the newly released preview, we know exactly what Negan used to be: a school teacher and a ping pong coach. Each month, new pages will appear in the Image+ preview magazine available at your local comic book store. The first four pages are available now in this month’s book, and the rest will unfold in the magazine over the course of a year.

In the first four pages, we see a sarcastic, younger Negan teaching his young wards in the fine art of ping pong. Being the uber-intense alpha male that he is, Negan easily overpowers one of his opponents, tearing the student down with a heady stew of expletives and sexual references that would make a walker blush.

After the verbally thrashed student sheepishly walks away, the other two students apologize to their teacher before leaving as well. Later, when his girlfriend arrives (in a revelation that should come as a surprise to no one), we learn that Negan wants to be the cool teacher on campus. However, things take a turn for the worse when Negan’s female friend begins having a seizure in front of him, and starts to collapse.

I’d be willing to bet dollars to murderous donuts that her name is Lucille. Speaking of which, here’s the first preview page of Here’s Negan that Image Comics previously released:

What do you think of this revelation? What other The Walking Dead character would you like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments below.

Here’s everything you need to know about Negan from The Walking Dead comics:

Image: AMC/Image Comics

Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).