#mark oakley

First off, it’s a fantasy.  A high fantasy that sometimes slips by you, with sorceresses, princesses, thieves, imps, goblins and a wizard who is possibly immortal, definitely long lived and prone to serious lapses in judgement.  Sometimes it can be very straightforward, and at others, you’ll have to read the passages a couple of times to parse all the information.

Oh.  And it’s a comic.  Sort of.  It’s sort of done with traditional comic panel, but there are also pages of prose writing, with art along the borders or text overlayed on top of the art itself.  I can honestly say I’ve never run into anything quite like it before.  It’s weird, but it’s also eye-catching.

I guess the best way of convincing someone is for them to see what I’m actually talking about.

The other thing is the author.  He does it all himself.  The art, the story, the selling, everything.  And here’s the part that sold it for me: he’ll talk to you.  Back when I was writing and trying to get ideas together, I stumbled upon him at a local con in the vendor’s area, at his own table.  I commented on his stuff, saw that he had a new book and went to buy it.  “One sec” he says, and he starts to draw on the inside cover.  Now, Mark probably does this for every schmo who buys his stuff, but this was someone who put all their work into a story and then went on to add more.  And as he was drawing, we talked about writing; me being a very amateur writer, him being probably still amateur in the world but with a hell of a lot more experience than me.  What do you do if...?  How would I do...?  Has this ever happened?  And he answered them.  He paid attention and talked to me about writing.  That sold me.

He writes little notes for every book he mails out, and adds free extra content.