From the best selling author of Soon I Will Be Invincible, which I fully recommend as well, Austin Grossman’s YOU available April 16th on Amazon has a feel about it that no other book I’ve read has. For those that love gaming, grew up with RPGs in the 80′s, or game now this book tells a story of what those games mean to some people, what it means to the industry, and the true hassle they go through to make these games. YOU gives you a feel for the main character Russell, who isn’t wholly likeable at the very beginning, he’s reminiscent of some people you meet from high school to college, the story takes Russell between the real world, a dream state, and the gaming realm, all the while trying to figure out what this bug in the game is and how to fix it to save his job, the company, and the people he’s come to befriend. Russell has just joined Black Arts studios and is now in a critical search to not only save his job, the company, and the game itself, but to save the mix of misunderstood people he has met as well.

This is a story about not only growing up as nerd, but growing up in general. It teaches the lessons that we all try to learn, growing up isn’t about getting the job, the family, or the moneyit’s about learning to accept who you are as a person, and learning that it’s okay to be that way. A phenomenal book, with a great message, a little bit of humor, and a lot of heart I definitely will pass on this book to my friends and family who are interested, and even a few who aren’t.

YOU that took me a few days to read, one day I read 200 pages without noticing at all until I realized I had finished the book, Austin Grossman not only captured me with his vivid descriptions, he told a story that held my attention for the entirety of this book. A definite read, and a great author.

Follow Austin on twitter @Austin_Grossman

Michael Worthan, Review: YOU by Austin Grossman

For a couple years now, there have been two rumors floating around concerning Zombieland, with the most logical being that a sequel was in the works, which is kind of has. Writers have been trying to come up with something, but it doesn’t look like anything will actually come of it. The second rumor is that a television series was being worked on for CBS and oddly enough, that’s the project that may be moving forward, as a casting call just went out.

According to I09, the call went out to cast the series main characters, which would carry over from the film. There are some minor spoilers ahead, so read on with caution. Below are some abbreviated descriptions for the characters, which also includes a couple of new characters. the series looks to delve into the back story of our four heroes.

Tallahassee is still kind of a snarky weirdo, but he seems to have a much less spiky relationship with Columbus. He and Columbus have a pretty amusing thing where they riff on the fact that Steven Seagal movies always have three-word titles like “Marked for Justice” or “May Cause Diarrhea.” But Tallahassee also dispenses homespun wisdom about how to feel happy with your life. He also tells a weird story about being in a trailer park with a perpetually nude Matthew McConaughey. He also has a somewhat heartwarming scene where he tells Columbus that he’s been wandering aimlessly for a long time, but maybe he’s been put here for a reason — to help Columbus and the others.

Columbus is much the same, except that he tracks down his grandma and grandpa (Bubbie and Peepaw) only to find them recently zombiefied. Also, Columbus is trying to deal with his new-found relationship with Wichita, after their first kiss. He has started calling her “Krista,” her real name — but there are some problems, especially after she finds him reading a book about fatherhood. He tries to organize a romantic scavenger hunt for her in the IKEA they’re camping out in, but it goes kind of horribly.

Wichita is still trying to look after Little Rock, trying to teach her math with problems about someone stealing from a liquor store and jumping on a train going 42 miles per hour, with a cop chasing in a car going 88 miles per hour. We also learn a lot more about Wichita’s backstory, including how she ran away from her father after he had her stealing people’s Christmas presents — and later, she found out she had a sister who was also being a grifter with her dad.

Little Rock seems actually kind of excited about meeting Columbus’ grandparents, before they turn out to be zombies. And she shares some of her own backstory, about how her dad parked her at a school while he went off grifting on his own — and then yanked her out of school right before a dance that she was looking forward to.

Fred and Ainsley are two office workers at the start of the zombie apocalypse, obliviously complaining about problems with their iPhones and getting the wrong order at Starbucks, which they admit are “first world problems” with a hashtag — while people are being disembowled just outside the window they’re not facing. Tallahassee shows up to bring them their lunch orders, wearing a green polo shirt.

As you can see, the writers plan to keep much of the same tone to the series that helped make the movie so enjoyable. Not unsurprisingly, they seem to be making the relationship between Columbus and Wichita the main focus, but also seem to be making a family out of the group. Not a terrible concept, especially considering they series will be a half-hour comedy. Things look promising!

__________

UPDATE! It’s been revealed by Broadcast that this series will actually end up streaming on Amazon, rather than be a traditional aired TV series, much like the resurgence of the cult favorite Arrested Development. No mention of time frame, but as with Netflix, it can be expected that Amazon won’t be restrained by the usual “seasons” as with traditional television series.

Josh "ecksmanfan" Johnson, Updated! Zombieland TV Series Begins Casting Process

THE SHADOW #13
Chris Roberson (w)
Giovanni Timpanol (a)
Alex Ross, Paolo Rivera, Tim Bradstreet, Francesco Francavilla (c)
4 regular covers will be shipped in equal ratios
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
A grisly string of random murders has left the authorities baffled, but The Shadow believes there is method to the killer’s madness. At each crime scene, eyewitnesses have spotted the spectral figure of a woman in white. Is “The Light” behind the murders, or a victim’s lost spirit? The Shadow must unravel the mystery before the killer strikes again!

When asked on Twitter if this would be longer than the upcoming “Light” arc, Roberson said he didn’t plan on going away anytime soon. This is great news for Shadow fans. Roberson has handled the cast of Masks well, but his Shadow writing stands out. The writer mentioned he particularly enjoyed writing the character in our interview last month (click here for that).  It will be interesting to see what Roberson brings to his first arc. He has written a lot of great stories and comics, but I’ve been particularly impressed with Masks. Having Chris Roberson continue on with the pulp characters will be something you can’t miss. What do you think about the news? Will you be tuning in for The Shadow vs. The Light?

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, Chris Roberson To Write The Shadow Ongoing

We also have some details on characters who are very likely to show up in the game. The list includes: The Thing, Juggernaut, Sandman, Green Goblin in a OsCorp Tower level, and Magneto.

Traveller’s Tale took on the DC universe in Lego Batman 2: Dc Super Heroes, a result of the studio being purchased by Warner Bros. in 2007. Because WB owns DC and the gaming company, many thought a Lego Marvel videogame was all but impossible. The fact TT is working on a new Lego game featuring over 100 Marvel characters came as quite the surprise to fans and the game’s developers alike.  In a recent write-up in the newest issue of Game Informer, thanks to our friend Llama for some scans, the company talked on the new project and teased new details for the upcoming game.

Jonathan Smith, TT Games head of production, touched on the seemingly impossible task of WB making a Marvel game:

The experience we’ve had with massive media organizations is that they’re not entirely stocked by bad people. This may come as a shock to people on the internet, but it turns out that big media organizations are capable of making really good decisions with players’ best interests at heart.

The article reveals that the game will feature The Avengers as an important part of the game, but it will work in other characters, factions, and groups inside the Marvel universe. The game’s story will be written by Mark Hoffmeier. The writer is no stranger to big franchises having written some for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and Marvel Super Hero Squad.  The story is still under wraps but it appears Loki will reach out to an unnamed villain to create a “bad-guy alliance to defeat the heroes who stand in their way.”

Two of the game’s most unique characters will be Spider-Man and Hulk. The city of New York will be destroyed in part and rebuilt by players, but gamers can cause destruction of their own with Hulk. The game developers had to work a lot of things around the green behemoth who will be a major focus of the game. Objects have to be destroyable and react to Hulk’s hyperstrength. While the Lego game will have the skillset characters of the previous game, Spider-Man seems to be in a class of his own. Instead of having isolated areas for web use like Batman’s grappling hook, the web slinger can use his webs to stick to any surface and swing wherever players want. Spider-Man’s webs can also be used to tie up bad guys and grab/pull objects. The trademark Spider sense is also in the game. According to one developer “Spider-Man is quite possibly the most difficult of the characters we’ve worked on, but he’s becoming the most satisfying from a design perspective.”

You can learn even more about the upcoming Marvel Lego game by picking up the newest issue of Game Informer. It sounds like this will be going well beyond the usually superhero Lego game fare. With the level of detail and free playing ability to Hulk and Spider-Man, it will be exciting to see what they bring for the other 100+ characters. What do you think? Will you be picking this game up?

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, UPDATE: New Details For The Lego Marvel Super Heroes Game

Marvel is pleased to present your first look at the explosive first issue of Age Of Ultron #1! This March, enter the darkest days of the Marvel Universe as it’s heroes fight for from the blockbuster creative team of Brian Michael Bendis (All New X-Men, Avengers VS. X-Men) and Bryan Hitch (Ultimates, Fantastic Four). Evil has triumphed over good and leading this new age is none other than Ultron, the deadly sentient robot created by founding Avenger Hank Pym who turned on his creator to achieve his twisted objective…the utter destruction of humanity. Now, it’s up to the few remaining heroes to band together and find any way to topple their new monarch. Can Wolverine, Emma Frost, Invisible Woman, Taskmaster, Beast, She-Hulk, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, and Moon Knight turn the tide?

With the robotic revolution in full force, no fan can miss how Age of Ultron will ultimately change the Marvel Universe leaving no hero or villain unscathed! So what are you waiting for? Head on over to your local comic shop and reserve a copy of Age of Ultron #1, featuring a unique cover with foil treatment and design at no extra cost. Fans have been demanding to know more about Age of Ultron since Free Comic Book Day last year, and come March- some of those questions and more (including an ending nobody will see coming) will be answered in Age of Ultron!

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, Blast From The Past: Marvel Bringing Back The Gold Foil Cover For Age Of Ultron

It’s quite likely that a new Heroes for Hire comic is headed our way this year, with the classic duo of Luke Cage and Danny Rand- Power Man and Iron Fist-, which will be written by Brian Bendis. However, this run will also feature Jessica Jones and her child, who is fathered by Luke Cage. But what about a film based on the duo? It’s been rumored for some time now that a Luke Cage film may be in production, with several actors throwing their names in the hat to play the lead role. There have also been some very minor rumblings of a movie based on Iron Fist as well, but nothing that has really gained much traction.

While talking with BuzzFeed, Marvel’s TV head honcho, Jeph Loeb, talked about the the Ultimate Spider-Man series and the different characters involved with that show, including Luke Cage and Danny Rand. Loeb had this to say:

“Just like we just announced Guardians of the Galaxy, we are certainly looking at the Heroes for Hire franchise which is Luke Cage and Iron Fist…”

Does this mean we are getting a movie centered on the Heroes for Hire? Possibly, but at least we know that Marvel is certainly considering the concept, and maybe more so that we all originally thought. Obviously, I’d suggest a bit of salt to go with this news. Would you rather see a Heroes for Hire film or introduce each of the character individually first and team them in a later film? I have to say, it may be a better option to combine the two and get a kick-ass action flick from this odd, but awesome pairing.

Josh "ecksmanfan" Johnson, A Heroes for Hire Movie from Marvel?

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, A Good Look At The Characters From Hyper Heroes

Ralph is a very simple movie at heart, but has plenty of deeper messages.  Kids will see what they want, and so will adults.  Kids will see a man who thinks he is bad be a good person.  Adults will see a complex film about heroes and their somewhat ambiguous morality.  It’s amazing how easily the movie balances these two extremes.  Never does the audience feel like these plot twists are forced or shoved in for the sake of it.  Everything feels natural for the story.  The plot does a great job of giving the audience to care for each and every character.  Even a character like King Candy, who turns out to be a villain for the movie.  The rules of the world are also stated nicely.  The audience doesn’t have to sit through some long exposition scene about how and why they game jump.  The rules are brought up naturally, or in a funny way.

Yes, there are video game references a plenty.  They go from obscure arcade games like Tappers, to main stream characters like Sonic.  The majority of Ralph takes place in a Mario Kart knock off, with plenty of jokes at that series.  It should take a couple viewings to get all of the hints and nods to games.  While many movies have tried to have their setting be a video game, none have succeeded.  But Ralph soars in this setting.  It’s clear the creators have a love for video games, and know what they are about.  There are plenty of jokes at modern and classic video games, but there is a respect behind those jokes.

The special effects are on the same level of Pixar.  8-bit characters move in quick motions, as they would when playing the game.  If something in an 8-bit game splashes, the puddles are squares.  It’s a small thing, but goes a long way to help sell the world that these characters are in.  Another big thing is having every character react as they would in their game.  On a small scale, this is to be expected.  But when there is a huge scene, filled with hundreds of characters, every character acts accordingly.  Sonic is in the background of one of these scenes, and we see him get hit with debris.  Naturally, he starts blinking and shoots out coins.  He was so far in the background, I almost missed it.

Wreck-It Ralph isn’t perfect though.  While the writing is great in most scenes, occasionally the writing gets a little on the nose with their message.  The movie treads the line well of adult and kid content, but the script creeps into preachy territory every so often.  It’s jarring, considering there are a few scenes that are quite dark emotionally, and filled with subtlety.  Then we go to a scene that lays everything out on the table.  It doesn’t ruin the movie by any means, but it could have been changed.

The voice actors create a great team.  No one steals the show, but they all work together to create a better movie.  John C. Riley makes Ralph lovable, and instantly the audience feels for the guy.  Sarah Silverman makes Vanellope annoying as hell, then the audience’s heart just breaks for her.  Her voice is one of the few who can’t be picked out right away.  Jane Lynch plays the tough as nails commander well, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion.  Jack McBryer was hysterical as Fix It Felix.  But the biggest surprise was that Alan Tudyk played King Candy.  He sounds nothing like Tudyk’s normal voice.  And as I have always said, “Putting Alan Tudyk in your movie ALWAYS makes it better.”

If Wreck-It Ralph proves one thing, it’s that kids don’t need a movie that coddles them.  Ralph deals with some heavy emotions that are accentuated by some perfectly voiced scenes.  It seemed almost un-Disney to have these characters so sad.  But it works.  Kids loved the movie, and many were screaming that they wanted to see it again.

Wreck-It Ralph gets 4/5.

MrComicBook, Wreck-It Ralph Review

In Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises”, a man dressed head-to-toe in bulletproof, black body armor opened fire on a crowd of 70 people standing in line to see the flick.

12 were instantly killed (including a 6 year old girl).  59 were critically injured.

When apprehended, the shooter identified himself as “The Joker”.  Law Enforcement officials searched his home for evidence, and found it rigged with explosives.  At the time of this email, they still haven’t disarmed them all.

One guy inspired by The Joker did all of this.

…so imagine what a group of people inspired by The Batman are capable of.

This Wednesday (July 25th), fourteen artists are going to set up shop at Heroes and Villains and do $10 sketches of Batman for folks–the entirety of which will go to The New Venture Fund, a charitable organization dedicated to supporting the victims & the families of the victims of the Aurora tragedy.

Those artists are:

Ryan Huna Smith 12pm-2pm
Greg Mannino 12pm-2pm
Adam Rex 12pm-3pm
Jenn Corella 12pm-3pm
Dadicus 2pm-8pm
Ernie Najera 2pm-8pm
Brian Augustyn 2pm-8pm
Eric Schock - 3:30pm-7pm
Clay Lewis 3:30pm-8pm
Hannah Nance Partlow 4pm-6pm
Jason Pedersen 4:30pm-6pm
Liz Danforth 5pm-7pm
Ross Demma 5pm-7pm
Arnie Bermudez 6pm-8pm

In addition to the $10 sketches, there will be several Batman-related pieces up for auction, and $2 memorial ribbons (again, the entirety of which goes towards The New Venture Fund) created by Jason Pedersen.

To donate via telephone, please call 520-321-HERO with your credit card information.

Heroes and Villains has been voted “Tucson’s Best Comics/Games Shop” by the readers of The Tucson Weekly for the past three years in a  row.

They can be found online at Facebook.com/HeroesAndVillainsTucson  , Twitter.com/HnVComics and  http://heroesandvillainstucson.tumblr.com/ .

Agent Burgos, INSPIRED BY BATMAN, TUCSONAN ARTISTS ASSEMBLE TO THWART EVIL

Ryan Rodriguez, Interview: Jason Pedersen Takes Us To School

Leading into the next big story arc for each member of Earth’s Mightiest, no fan can miss these emotionally charged issues that will change these heroes forever. Shattered Heroes starts here!

• FEAR ITSELF #7.1 (SEP110497)
• Written by ED BRUBAKER
• Pencils & Cover by BUTCH GUICE
• FOC – 10/10/11, ON SALE – 11/2/11

• FEAR ITSELF #7.2 (SEP110499)
• Written by MATT FRACTION
• Pencils & Cover by ADAM KUBERT
• FOC – 10/17/11, ON SALE – 11/9/11

• FEAR ITSELF #7.3 (SEP110501)
• Written by MATT FRACTION
• Pencils & Cover by SALVADOR LARROCA
• FOC – 10/24/11, ON SALE – 11/16/11

Comic Book Therapy, Marvel Reveals Big Changes After Fear Itself; Teases Shattered Heroes!

In this episode Eric M Esquivel from Heroes and Villains, discuses the end of “Flashpoint“, and how excited he is for the new 52 DC relaunch.

Heroes and Villains will be sponsoring the first 4 podcasts and we can’t be more excited about it! If you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment below.

Make sure you visit them online HERE and like their Facebook page HERE. Do you have Twitter, well then, you can find Heroes and Villains HERE!

Thanks and enjoy!

Genre: Comic Book Podcast | Updates: Weekly | Duration: 35 minutes | Subscribe: RSS Feed / iTunes

Agent Burgos, The Weekly Dose Podcast #1 – Flashpoint and The New 52 DC Relaunch

- Where did you come up with the basis for Ex-Heroes? And did any of your heroes take after heroes from your childhood or did you envision them to be fully unique?
Ex-Heroes came about through some dissatisfaction and a bit of serendipity.  I’ve been a huge comic fan since I was about seven, but as of late I’ve become very bothered by the trend of aiming comics solely at adults.  The Big Two, who traditionally had a very young demographic, are now marketing pretty much exclusively to ages twenty and up.  And one of the ways they do this is by making all the characters as messed up and melodramatic as possible.  Being heroic is the least-important thing.
When I heard that one of the Big Two was going to do a zombie miniseries with a very Romero feel to it, I was thrilled.  Not only did I love the idea, but it was a situation that essentially forced the heroes to be heroic.  I imagined all these great last stands and classic heroes barricading themselves in buildings with civilian survivors.
Needless to say, the story was not that at all.  It wasn’t heroic at all, it was just a gorefest.  These weren’t even heroes—they were just cannibalistic ghouls wearing superhero costumes and talking non-stop.  They had to be tireless zombies to talk that much.
So I channeled my dissatisfaction and scribbled a bunch of notes onto a legal pad of what I would’ve done.  The ideas I would’ve explored with these heroes in this situation.  Super-powered twists on a lot of classic zombie tropes.  That sort of thing.
That probably would’ve been it, but a few months later my girlfriend and I decided to move in together and got a new place.  I finally had a home office and got to unpack a bunch of stuff I’d been hauling around for years.  One of the things I found was a pile of old sketchbooks from grade school and junior high, when my big goal in life was to write comics for Marvel.  There were tons of heroes and villains in there.  And I was paging through these and it struck me that a lot of these characters I’d created when I was ten or eleven would slot into the zombie story I’d hoped to see.
Granted, they needed a lot of work.  Some of them were kind of goofy, in that ten year old way, so there were some revamps and polishes to all of them.  Probably the biggest revision was that all my superhero characters were male.  At age ten I didn’t see what anyone could possibly find appealing about hot women in spandex fighting crime.  So in this revamp a few male characters became female.  Stealth was male, originally.  So were Cerberus and Banzai.  I think it worked out better for all of them.

–How much research did you do for diseases?
For the zombie idea?  I’d stumbled across the bit about the Komodo dragon years ago, and I’m cursed with a freakishly good memory for stuff like that.  It fit well, and I’d never heard of that angle before.
The funny thing is, right after the book sold to Permuted Press I got to interview George Romero for my then-day job at Creative Screenwriting Magazine.  So I was doing some random background research before we talked and found out he’d used the exact same analogy with the Komodo one time in an interview to explain why zombie bites were lethal in his stories.  I was horrified everyone would think I’d just ripped him off.  But then I talked to a few friends who were die-hard Romero fans and they’d never heard it, so I figured I was safe.
And then, as icing on the cake of shame, about a month or so before the book came out a study came out that showed Komodos really are poisonous.  The disease element is just an odd side-effect.
So my research is all crap, apparently…

Peter Clines as taken from his FB page

- Ex-Heroes goes from current story to the past and shows how each hero or hero that is now an ex got to that point in time. This is only the second time I’ve seen this done in a book and I really enjoy it will Ex-Patriots be similar? And how did you come up with that style of story telling?
I’m afraid to say it was laziness.  Well, not entirely, but it definitely wasn’t the case of a careful planned structure right from the start.  When I first started scribbling notes and ideas to myself—with no real idea where it would lead to—I was just doing little character pieces.  One of the first things I tried was more or less a first person short story which eventually became “The Luckiest Girl In The World,” the story of the Zombocalypse from Banzai’s point of view.  A little bit after that I wrote “Subtle Beauty” and “Enter The Dragon.” They were just things to let me get a grip on the characters and some of the backstory.  I knew my real story was going to be the aftermath, not the uprising.
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point it occurred to me that I could keep all of these chapters for just that reason—they gave a great view of the characters and they told some of the history.  In fact, with the three I’d scribbled, I realized I was telling the backstory sequentially.  Plus it meant I already had about 10,000 words done in the novel.  So I decided to run with it and it let me do a lot of fun stuff.

- Gorgon was my favorite character in Ex-Heroes, did you have a hero that you really enjoyed writing?
It’s tough to say.  I enjoyed them all because I love the idea of superheroes and each of the characters hit a certain archetype.  Gorgon is the gritty, borderline-vigilante.  St. George is the noble, larger-than-life symbol—the boy scout.  Stealth is the dark protector type.  Cerberus is the high-tech armored one.  Zzzap is the energetic one.  Even the ones we only get glimpses of hit a lot of standard tropes.  Banzai’s the super-nimble acrobat.  Cairax is the supernatural guy.  Blockbuster’s the strong guy (because every group has a strong guy).
I couldn’t really pick.  I could say that if I didn’t enjoy writing one of the character, I probably would’ve left them out.  I think that distaste shows through.  I even enjoy the bad guys.

- I was recommended your book by a friend and was very pleasantly surprised at how great it really was. As a fan I have become kind of  jaded with zombie books, but you took a fresh new approach. Are there any zombie novels, comics or anything of the sort that got you started on this unique genre of writing? If so who and why?
It’s funny you ask that.  I don’t think I really did anything that unique.  It wasn’t anything new, it was just going back to a lot of the standards I grew up with.  My zombies are really just your classic Romero shamblers.  They’re slow, they’re mindless, they walk into walls, they’re attracted by noise, and so on.  My heroes, like I mentioned above, are just a lot of standard superhero archetypes.
I think it’s that back-to-basic-ness which seems so fresh and new to people.  I think a lot of writers are determined to find “a bold new take” on classic ideas and they make big changes or shifts.  And, in all fairness, some of them really do some amazing stuff.  But I think after a while most people just end up wanting the classic.  That’s why no matter how many times they revamp Spider-Man or Superman, they always end up back in the same costume with the same powers.  We’ve had, what… the four after-death Supermen, the Electrical Superman (two different colors, even), Kryptonian battle-armor Superman…  In a year he’ll be back in the same fabric costume with the red shorts.  I’d put money on it.
Y’know what it is?  Have you ever gone to a restaurant where it’s impossible to get a cheeseburger?  They’ll have a braised ostrich burger with brie on a croissant, a garlic-seasoned patty with pine nuts and blue cheese crumbles on an oatmeal-sesame bun, or something along those lines.  And these are all good and nice for a little change, but in the end most folks just end up wanting a basic cheeseburger.  I think Ex-Heroes is a cheeseburger in a wave of new-age California cuisine.

- What is the most surprising reaction you’ve gotten to Ex-Heroes fan wise?
Honestly, I’m still kind of surprised people have liked it as much as they have.  I was pretty sure it was a good story when I finished it, but I also knew it was kind of an homage to the type of heroes and stories I grew up with.  Going off what sells in comics these days, I felt very alone in that, so I figured it wouldn’t work for most people.  They’d find it too silly or childish.  So it’s been kind of overwhelming to see the number of folks who’ve enjoyed and—as in your case—passed it on to other friends.
I will say, one thing that completely blew me away was some of the interpretations of how Cairax got infected.  It’s something I left a bit vague, yes, but all the clues are there for what happened to him.  Some of them aren’t even that subtle.  I never dreamed some people’s minds would drop so far into the gutter.  Well, okay, that they’d go on record with it, at least…

- The sequel to Ex-Heroes is coming out in a little while– what can we expect from Ex-Patriots? How far from the end of Ex-Heroes is this book set? And do we get to see maturity from all of the heroes that are still around from Ex-Heroes?
Ex-Patriots starts up about eight months after Ex-Heroes.  To be exact, it’s the summer of 2011 (lucky break, that).  The people of the Mount are settled in and exploring more of Los Angeles, because supplies are getting tight with their increased population.  And, as in any zombie story, this is when the military shows up.
One thing that was important to me, though, was that the Army not be the bad guys.  So often in this type of post-apocalyptic story the military gets portrayed as inept or mad with power.  Whenever you get a military hero, they’re either the rare exception or they’re a deserter—often both.  I knew there’d be a clash of methods and ideas between civilian forces and military forces, but I didn’t want the Army to be a group of deluded psychos going “muah-hah-hah—we’re here to take your food and your women.”
As far as the heroes themselves—the ones who made it out of Ex-Heroes, anyway—their lives have progressed a bit and they’ve all changed a little.   When I sat down to write Ex-Patriots I already knew I had a very, very strong chance of getting a third book, so this time I was able to do a bit more foreshadowing and plant some more seeds, so to speak.  There are some things left dangling in Ex-Patriots that are obvious set-ups for another story.  It’s my Empire Strikes Back, if I may be so bold.

- My questions have been a bit long, but this is the last one. I ask every author I get the chance to interview this same question and everyone has a different take so I would love to hear yours. What does it take to be a great writer?
A great writer?  Beats me.  I’m still trying to figure that one out myself.
To be a good writer, I think it’s pretty simple. Write.  Sit your butt in a chair and start putting words on the page.
I know that sounds kind of trite, but it really is the truth.  Most professional writers wrote and wrote and wrote before they got any small degree of success.  I wrote three or four novels that will never, ever see the light of day and dozens of short stories that didn’t sell.  But that’s how I learned.  I see so many people who want instant results and are furious their genius wasn’t recognized in the first thousand words they ever strung together.  Either that or they get so caught up in classes and how-to books that they never do anything.
Look at it this way, if I can use another food analogy.  Say you wanted to be a really good chef.   Would you really be all that surprised if no one wanted to pay seventy bucks for the first meal you ever cooked?  You could also read all the cookbooks in the world, study every recipe,  and spend every night watching cooking shows, but I think we can all agree that won’t make you a chef either, right?  You have to get in the kitchen and practice again and again and again.  Then maybe on your seventieth or eightieth or one hundred-fiftieth cheesecake someone will say “Wow—that’s totally worth ten bucks a slice.”  But you can’t expect it to happen without that work.
Man, now I want cheesecake…

I would Like to thank Peter Clines for taking the time and doing this interview with me, if you haven’t picked up Ex-Heroes yet I highly recommend it, and keep an eye out for the sequel Ex-Patriots.

Michael Worthan, An Interview with Ex-Heroes & Ex-Patriots Author Peter Clines