The Detroit Free Press put the spotlight on the Michigan-based Actionopolis authors and paid special attention to your’s truly and “Heir to Fire”.
OH, SNAP! A DAY FOR COMICS: Illustrated books festival features Michigan authors
November 3, 2006
BY JULIE HINDSIn “Heir to Fire,” Ryan Morales gets invited to a cute girl’s pool party and battles to save his town from a giant mutant spider.
It’s a creepy-cool adventure from Actionopolis, a new line of illustrated novels for young readers that’s spun a web of Michigan connections.
Brain-stinging spiders are just the ticket for drawing in kids who’d rather be immersed in video games than books, says Rob Worley, 42, of Madison Heights, author of “Heir to Fire” (Actionopolis/Komikwerks, $12.95).
“There’s just something fascinating about imagining creatures that don’t exist in the real world,” he says. “It’s fun to imagine they might really be out there.”
Worley and other Actionopolis authors are set to appear Saturday at SNAP! The Comic Arts Festival in Dearborn, a one-day gathering that highlights local and regional self-published and small-press comics creators.
Dan and Katie Merritt of Dearborn’s Green Brain Comics launched the event in 2005 to give comic book fans a chance to meet some of the talent in their own backyard. This year’s lineup includes more than 40 special guests.
For Worley, SNAP! is a chance to spread the word on Actionopolis books, which hit stores in September and are aimed at ages 8 and up.
In the world of comic books, “it’s, like, 40-year-old guys writing for 35-year-old guys, and nobody’s writing for kids anymore,” says Worley, who’s also the founder of Comics2film.com, a Web site that covers the intersection of comics and movies.
But in the wake of successes like “Harry Potter,” publishers of action-packed novels are eagerly reaching out to young readers.
The current Actionopolis line, published by Komikwerks, consists of seven hardcover books priced at $12.95 each. The chapters are short, the pace is swift and the titles are grabby, like “Spirit of the Samurai” and “What I Did on my Hypergalactic Interstellar Summer Vacation.”
More titles are planned for next year, as are sequels to this year’s crop. Information on the current books is available at Actionopolis.com.
“We’re trying to make family-friendly material that’s not boring,” says the line’s copublisher, Shannon Denton, who’s based in the Phoenix area.
The writers and artists for Actionopolis are scattered across the country and include several people from Michigan.
Besides Worley, the list includes Gary Reed of Canton, of Caliber Comics fame, and Dan Mishkin of East Lansing, a veteran comics writer who has worked for Marvel and DC. They’re all involved with current Actionopolis books.
Others from metro Detroit, including Paul Storrie, Storn Cook and William Messner-Loebs, are linked to upcoming titles.
Worley, Reed and Storrie plan to be at the SNAP! event.
“It’s really just sort of a nice happenstance,” says Denton of the line’s Michigan ties. “It’s just a lot of really talented people out of that area.”
Worley, who works part-time as a software developer, started writing screenplays and comic books in earnest about six years ago.
He’s busy at the moment lining up bookstore appearances for Actionopolis.
“We’re kind of excited to be, maybe, a way for these kids to read books, where they wouldn’t ordinarily want to read books,” he says.
And if young consumers ring up enough sales, he’s got three more “Heir to Fire” books plotted out for sequels.