You can find me on tumblr now

Hey everyone...

For the foreseeable future, I'm going to be shifting my blogging over to http://marksable.tumblr.com/.

It seems that's where all the cool kids are at these days. I reserve the right to come back here if that changes, but I think I'm reaching more people there. I hope to be posting there a lot more frequently than I have here, and really make it a destination worth coming to more often. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, please do. And as always, if there are things you want me to post (process stuff about a particular comic, for example), let me know.

Emerald City Comic-Con

GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES (and GROUNDED, and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) artist Paul Azaceta and I will be at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle THIS WEEKEND, March 4-6 2011, at Table G-25.

We’ll be showing off art from Graveyard, Paul will be sketching, and I should have copies of all my books for sale. That includes RIFT RAIDERS, my Kickstart book with Julian Totino Tedesco (pictured above). Rift Raiders sold out from Diamond, and while it will be re-solicited, if you are there this may be your only chance to to get a copy until June.

If there’s anything you’d like me to bring in particular (some single issue of GROUNDED or FEARLESS, for example), let me know. But as much as I like to sell stuff, the reason ECCC is one of my favorite cons is the fan interaction. It’s more comic-centric than most cons, and while well attended it’s still intimate enough to actually converse. I’m always happy to chat comics, please come by and say hello.

I should also mention there will be a number of my collaborators there besides Paul, including Sean Murphy (Teen Titans: Cold Case, Joe the Barbarian), Jeremy Haun (Two-Face: Year One) and Matthew Southworth (What If? Spider-Man, Stumptown). Matthew did fill-in work on Spidey which I've never gotten to thank him for.

All will be happy to sign. Too many friends to name, and overall one of the strongest talent lineups I’ve seen.

I'll be reachable and try to update my goings on via Twitter.

(Sorry - this is pretty much the same post I put up on Tumblr, but I'm not fully packed and I'm leaving for the airport soon).

GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES

I'm pleased to officially announce my next creator-owned book, GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES, the first issue of which is coming this June from Image Comics. It's illustrated and co-created by Paul Azaceta, artist of my first book, GROUNDED, as well as my most recent, WHAT IF? SPIDER-MAN.

I think it's both of our best work, and in many ways it feels like my career is coming full circle. Five years after GROUNDED, with a lot more work under our belt, we bring a lot more to the table. This is also a collaboration in the true sense of the word. Paul has had significant input into the story, and I'm hitting him hard with reference and trying to push the boundaries of what either of us has done on the page. Definitely a case where the whole will be better than the sum of the parts.

Here's the solicit:

Afghanistan. Marines face a never-ending onslaught of Taliban. But even hell can get worse. The dead are coming back to life in The Graveyard of Empires, and only together can both sides of today’s conflict survive tomorrow’s undead assault.

It's full color, with 32 full pages of story at the incredibly low price of $2.99. DC and Marvel titles at $2.99 will only give you 20 pages of story these days.

We're looking at "Criminal" model for this book. Basically, to publish it in volumes or seasons. This volume will be 3 issues, and offer a complete story (which will be the equivalent of at least 4 22 page issues), with a beginning, middle and end. If there's demand for it, we have plans for sequels.

This is not just another zombie book. Yes, if you like zombies, you'll get them, and you'll see them used in unique ways. But this is first and foremost a war comic. Paul and I did an incredible amount of research, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a comic that depicts the reality of war in Afghanistan.

(It's crazy to me that at a time when we are fighting two wars there are little or no war comics -"Garth Ennis' Battlefields, set in WWII, is a notable exception - let alone contemporary ones.)

The pitch for this was "Hurt Locker" meets "Dawn of the Dead". The first issue is certainly closer to the former than the latter. And, like Dawn of the Dead, while it is a genre piece, the zombies serve as a metaphor for something called "insurgent math".

Kill an insurgent, and you are likely to create 10 more - you've pissed of his family and friends, and possibly caused collateral damage to civilians he may be hiding among.

Kill someone in an area where the dead are returning alive, and they'll come back as a zombie, biting and infecting you and your friends, creating more zombies and perpetuating a different kind of endless war.

As seriously as we took the research, this should still be a fun, action-packed book.

I will have more to say and post about this soon, both here and on my new Tumblr blog. Paul and I will also be at Emerald City Comic Con this weekend at table G-25, March 4-6, 2011, where we'll have art to show you and be happy to chat about this.

Listen to me on Meltdown Comics MELTCAST

Ever since I've had an apartment in LA, Meltdown Comics on Sunset has been my primary comic book retailer. Yes, it helps that I live a few blocks from there. But, as dorky as it is to admit...the fact I could walk to a comic book store did play a role in picking where I live when I'm on the West Coast.

Picking up comics on Wednesday (for those of you who don't read comics regularly) can be what helps you make it through get over the hump of a long week. It gives you something to look forward to Monday and Tuesday when Friday seems so far away.

But for me, Meltdown isn't just a place where I pick up my books, it's a destination. I work from home, primarily, so it's an excuse for me to get out of the house. But even if it weren't for the comics, or the oasis it represent from work, it would still be a great place to hang.

There are great events there, from signings to art exhibits to comedy shows. Most of which have free alcohol. Having grown up in an era when comics were dorky, it still blows my mind that it's considered a cool place to hang out, even for - maybe especially for - civilians. You can take your girlfriend there without having her feel out of place.

(Let me take a quick break here to say that Meltdown is by no means the only great comics store in LA. I'm sure I'll leave some out, but I'd note that Ryan Gottlieb's Golden Apple on Melrose is super well stocked and run, and Ed Greenberg's Collector's Paradise in Winnetka - the valley - is as well, in addition to being kid friendly. And when I'm in Manhattan, I always love stopping by Jim Hanley's Universe in the shadow of the Empire State Building, where Vito and friends have included me in some fantastic signings. I promise I'll give them some ink here at another time, as they've been great to me as well.)

As much as I enjoy the events (particularly when they are about me and my work), it's the weekly conversation I look forward to the most. It's rare to walk in there and not run into a fellow comic creator. In an industry where we're spread all over the world, and in a city when people don't like to travel very far, that's no small thing.

My favorite conversations are with staff, although the line between staff and comics professional is a blurry one. It started when my good friend Matt Gagnon, now the frightfully young and talented Editor in Chief at BOOM! Comics was manager. Caleb Monroe has been behind the counter for as long as I can remember, but it hasn't stopped him from writing books for BOOM! and Archaia, including UNTHINKABLE artist Julian Totino Tedesco's American debut.

Caleb is still there, but now I spend much of my time talking to manager and fellow New Yorker Chris Rosa. Yes, we spend an awful lot that time commiserating about our Knicks and Jets, or Chris' obsession with Namor, the Sub-Mariner. But Chris is also the host of one of, if not the best comics podcasts in the business - THE MELTCAST.

Along with Caleb, former MySpace comics guru and current CBGB/Fraggle Rock writer Sam Humphries, and engineer Aaron Brewer, they've recreated the same atmosphere that makes the store so much fun. The Meltcast is many things - smart, funny, wide-ranging...but more than anything, it's just a great place to talk comics.

They were nice enough to have me again on this past week. Like always, we talked about what's new in the world of comics and about our trade paperback picks of the week (mine were James Robinson's STARMAN Omnibus and Brian K. Vaughan's EX MACHINA, both drawn by Tony HARRIS) - which are offered to Meltdown customers at a substantial discount.

I also got to talk about my work. Because I don't have anything new for sale, it wasn't about plugging, it was a chance to look back at the process of writing TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE and WHAT IF? SPIDER-MAN. I didn't have to shill, and instead I thought I could share some insight on the challenges that come along with writing continuity heavy titles for Marvel and DC.

It's a great episode of a great podcast, and you can listen to it for free here. Since it's not a call in show, I'd love to hear your opinions, and I'm happy to answer whatever questions you may have.

Thanks to the entire Meltcast's, er...cast, for letting me go off on tangents and find my way back, and for not letting me burn TOO many bridges.

Next post: updates on what I'm working on, with art!

TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE out WED DEC 22nd

This Wednesday, my last published work of 2010 hits stores - TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE, drawn by superstar artist Sean Murphy. It's a double-sized special with 44(!) pages of story.

Comic Book Resources has a 4 page preview of it here.

As I've hinted at before, this Teen Titans tale means quite a bit to me. To explain why, let me give you a little bit of its history.

TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE started out as a two-issue Teen Titans arc called "FATHER'S DAY", about 3-4 years ago when Geoff Johns was finishing his great run on the book. I had just written GROUNDED, and this was my first work for hire assignment. Former DC and now Marvel editor Jeanine Schaefer came up to me at New York Comic-Con, and having seen how I'd handled teens in GROUNDED, and told me I'd be perfect to pitch for a Teen Titans story.

Jeanine is someone I owe a lot to in my career. Not only did she give me my first break at DC, she also gave me a chance to write darker material with TWO-FACE: YEAR ONE, at a time when I was worried I'd get typecast as the teen superhero guy.

Along with Eddie Berganza, she helped guide me as I wrote characters that for the first time weren't my own. They also paired me with one of the best artist's I've ever worked with, Sean Murphy. At the time he was best known for his Oni book "Off Road" and Scarecrow: Year One (the latter is, coincidentally, packaged in trade paperback with my Two-Face story). Sean knocked the Titans issues out of the park...yet despite all the pages being fully inked, they never saw print.

To this day I'm not entirely sure why. We were told various things, either involving continuity or office politics. At the time, I was not happy. Now, I realize things like that happen all the time. Until this summer, I contented myself with the fact I was paid for my work, and that I had a great piece of Sean Murphy's original art on the wall - a double paged spread of The Teen Titans fighting the Flash's Rogues Gallery of villains. Not to mention that the unpublished Titans story led to me writing CYBORG, SUPERGIRL and more for DC.

Flash forward to this past summer. I'm at San Diego Comic-Con, where I don't want to be, because my father had just passed away. I forced myself to go because I didn't want to let down any of my creative or business partners, and I knew my father would want me to - no one believed in my career more than him. I run into Eddie Berganza, who congratulates me on my Teen Titans story getting published.

I'm not someone that necessarily believes in something bigger than myself, but the fact that a long lost story called "Father's Day" was going to finally see print after I'd lost my own father...I have to admit that in some way it felt like a sign.

The only problem was...I'd written the story years ago. Continuity had changed quite a bit. Some of the Titans were no longer on the team, and some of them were dead. It was written as a two issue arc, not a giant-sized one shot. And upon reading the story, I realized that the flip side of being a much better writer than I was back then is that the story needed a lot of work.

Because the story was already drawn, my options for improving it were limited. Sean had moved on to bigger and better things (Hellblazer and Grant Morrison's Joe the Barbarian, to name a few). His newfound success might be why the book was seeing print, but he couldn't have redrawn the pages if he wanted to.

I always do a dialogue pass on comics when I see the lettering. But this time, with the help of Eddie and Editor Adam Schlagman, I did the most extensive series of rewrites I've ever done on a comic. I added narration to make the continuity clear to readers (like me) who haven't picked up Titans in a while (or ever), to tie the two issues together, and to add a level of emotional depth that I thought was lacking.

In doing so, I realized that was I fortunate this story hadn't come out earlier, exposing my less polished work to the world. But more importantly, I probably wasn't able to tell the story I wanted to until the terrible events of this past summer.

TEEN TITANS: FATHERS DAY was re-named TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE. It was changed to avoid confusion with another title, to reflect the presence in the book of Captain Cold, the lead villain in the Flash's Rogues Gallery, and to play off the idea of an untold story, an unsolved mystery from the past.

But there was a reason it was originally entitled "Father's Day". When I wrote the book, Tim Drake, at that time Robin to Bruce Wayne's Batman, had just lost his father, Jack Drake, in a mini-series by Brad Meltzer called Identity Crisis. He was killed by Captain Boomerang, who he took with him to his grave. That left two sons without fathers. While the hook of the story is to two teams of super-heroes and super-villains fighting it out for the first time, it's really about two families facing grievous losses.

Until this summer, I don't think I truly understood loss. A while back in this blog, I wrote about how my father inspired me to write TWO-FACE: YEAR ONE. He was not just my dad, but my best friend, and my hero. Like Harvey Dent, he was a prosecutor in a sometimes less than ethical justice system. Unlike Harvey Dent, he was able to overcome his demons and be a real force of good. He put away spies and mafioso, and later, as a judge, helped bring fairness to the trials of both the accused and their alleged victims. The term hero gets thrown around loosely, particularly in comics, but my dad was also a guy who once physically took down a madman with a machete. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Re-writing TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE, I realized it was in some ways like a last letter to my dad. Robin, like Bruce Wayne, is struggling not only with the loss of his dad, but also with the fact that his father died with something in his hands Bruce never would have approved of - a gun. Robin was also afraid of a possible future he had glimpsed where he used a gun to kill a villain.

Metaphorically, I think those things stand in for all our fears, of losing loved ones, and of inheriting qualities of our parents that we hope to avoid.

My father carried - but never used - a gun, something I had very mixed feelings about growing up. I'm not a gun lover. But as the son of an Assistant U.S. Attorney I grew up under very real death threats aimed at my family. It's a story for another time, but I've had a gun pointed at me since I was literally in the womb. Suffice to say I understand the necessity of firearms for personal defense.

Without spoiling the story I hope you'll read, I came to many of the same conclusions Robin did. My father was faced with incredibly difficult decisions, and while I may have made different ones, that doesn't make him any less of a hero. And while, like Robin, I'm jealous of people who still have fathers (even questionable ones), I wouldn't trade my father, or the time I had with him, for anything in the world.

WHAT IF? SPIDER MAN (KILLED KRAVEN THE HUNTER)- OUT NOW

My Marvel Comics debut, "What If? Spider-Man" is out in stores as of this Wednesday, December 15th 2010.

It's hard to say what means more to me, achieving my lifelong dream of working with Marvel, or having my name on another book with Paul Azaceta.

While I've enjoyed writing for DC, I was a Marvel guy growing up. The theme of my Bar Mitzvah was Marvel Comics. Somewhere out there are shirts with a caricature of me in Iron Man's silver and crimson armor with the words "I had a MARVELous time at Mark's Bar Mitzvah".

That particular Iron Man suit, along with a bearded Thor and a Black and Red Captain America, also heralded my favorite Spider-Man garb - his black and white costume. To me, that's the iconic version, and it's the one he wears through most of our What If? story.

What If? Spider-Man spins out of Joe Kelly's recent GRIM HUNT storyline. In it, Spider-Man is run through a gauntlet, with many of those close to him killed by his classic foe Kraven The Hunter. Spider-Man comes close to killing him, and our story asks what would have happen if he'd taken that next step.

There's some people I should thank for this opportunity. Editor Tom Brennan, who not only picked me for this assignment but really stepped in and made this a better story. Steve Wacker, who I wrote an as yet unpublished Spider-Man story for that got me this gig. And Mark Waid, former editor-in-chief of BOOM! Studios. Mark recommended me to Marvel when I was working on Unthinkable, and helped get my foot in the door. That was no small favor - it's hard to imagine the EIC of any major publisher recommending a writer or artist to a competitor. It speaks to the kind of guy Mark Waid is - a mensch.

While it's a dream come true, so is working with Paul again. While he did the covers for UNTHINKABLE, this is the first time we've collaborated on a story since my first published work, GROUNDED, nearly five years ago. Since that time, Paul has become one of the main Spider-Man artists, and one of the top talents in the industry. There's no greater compliment to me than an artist wanting to work with me again. If you like what we're doing here, you're going to love our creator-owned book, GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES, which should be out in 2011.

In the meantime, I hope you'll check What If? Spider-Man out. Next Wednesday, December 22nd, my last book of 2010 comes out, when I head back to DC Comics for TEEN TITANS: COLD CASE with Sean Murphy.

RIFT RAIDERS well-reviewed and out NOW, What If? Spider-Man Out next Wed, Dec 15th

I should have posted this weeks ago, but Rift Raiders is now available in stores. While I'd love you to support your local comic shop, you can also pick it up at Walmart, or download it on Comixology.com. I believe it will be available in more venues next year.

The reviews so far have been fantastic.

David Pepose made Rift Raiders one of Newsarama's "best shots". He said:

"If Rift Raiders is the flagship of Kickstart Comics, I have to say — this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

Imagine National Treasure mixed with Runaways and throw it through time instead of space, and you've got the basic gist of Mark Sable and Julian Totino Tedesco's new book. Broad enough to embrace new readers and way more stylish than it has any right to be, there is a whole lot to like about Rift Raiders."

I particularly like that he said "But the real success story in this book is Julian Totino Tedesco, who pulls a page from the Sean Murphy playbook with some looser, more cartoony lines than his work on Unthinkable — and man, does it look absolutely slick." It's not false modesty to say that, as proud as I am of writing it, Julian is the real star of this book.

I love the comparison to Sean Murphy, who is a superstar talent and a friend. He drew my upcoming Teen Titans: Cold Case book, out December 22nd. Speaking of which, Kevin Mahadeo did a great interview with me about that book at Comic Book Resources, where I discuss why that book has special meaning for me.

There's another nice Rift Raiders review from Stewart Ryder at Paradox Comics. An excerpt"The pairing of Mark Sable and Julian Totino Tedesco impressed me last year...in the terrific Unthinkable...luckily...Kickstart have managed to reunite the duo to spin a tale of adventurous time travel."

Finally, I did a fun interview with EJ Feddes over at Spunky Bean focusing on Rift Raiders.

Thanks David, Stewart, Kevin and EJ for the reviews and interviews. If you are a (legitimate) reviewer, and would like to review Kickstart, I can arrange for a copy to be sent your way.

Next week, Dec 15th, my first (published) Marvel work, What If? Spider-Man, comes out. It's drawn by Paul Azaceta, artist and co-creator off GROUNDED, my first published work, period. So it's like things have come full circle.

I'll have more on Spidery soon, but I have to get back to work. Which right now includes GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES, my next Image book (also drawn and co-created by Paul), DECOY, my next Kickstart book, some motion comic work for an upcoming blockbuster movie, my teaching for The Writer's Boot Camp and...god, that's not everything and already I'm both excited and stressed out.