SAN DIEGO — Ten years after The X-Files was last on the air, the classic science fiction conspiracy show has finally launched its tenth season–in comics form, with a series from IDW.

X-Files creator Chris Carter and star Gillian Anderson (Scully) joined IDW Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall as well as comics writer Joe Harris and series editor Joe Corroney on a panel at Comic-Con International moderated by series actor Dean Haglund (Langely of the Lone Gunmen) to discuss the future of the series.

Season 10 takes place in real time, returning to the characters a decade after the end of the show. So what have Mulder and Scully been up to for that long? “Sex,” postulated Anderson, to the disgust of Haglund.

“I’m ‘noromo,’” he explained, referring to a term coined by X-Files fans who believe Mulder and Scully’s relationship should have stayed platonic.

The comic, which is written by Harris with art by Michael Walsh, has been teasing the return of several fan-favorite characters who died in the show, and Haglund confirmed that the Lone Gunmen will indeed be back: “Well, you never actually saw their bodies…”

Another dead character whose return has been teased is series-mythos villain Cigarette-Smoking Man, who appears on the cover of the third issue. However, X-Files creator Chris Carter cautioned fans that the reveal might not be what it seems: “That’s one of my favorite things [comics writer] Joe [Harris] is doing–you can’t take anything at face value.”

As for Hill, he’s focusing on moving the story forward without relying too heavily on retcons or resurrections, and keeping with the show’s tradition of breaking up ongoing mythos stories with monster-of-the-week one-offs. Meanwhile, he’s juggling a lot of continuity. “I wish I had a research assistant,” Hill responded to a fan’s question about how he keeps his X-Files history straight. “I have a handful of DVDs and a Netflix Queue. And a stack of papers.”

Another fan asked if X-Files had any potential of making its way to licensed fanfiction platform Kindle Worlds. Carter suspected that the main deterrents for Fox would be time and expense, but Haglund had his own condition to add: “As long as there’s no [Lone] Gunmen slash!”

Anderson also reunited with co-star David Duchovny, aka Fox Mulder at a separate X-Files 20th anniversary panel earlier at Comic-Con, where they were joined by Carter. When the question of whether Mulder and Scully ever had a sexual relationship–something that was implied but never shown onscreen–came up on the panel, Anderson replied, “Well, something happened. Because we have a child.”