Behind the Cover: Michael Komarck

"I was born in Louisiana and relocated to Michigan at a very young age. As the years passed, I transitioned from crayons to pencils to acrylics to oils, and In 1989 I found myself at a community college where my suspicions that I was better off self-taught in art where proven correct almost immediately. My stint there was brief in the extreme.

 
Cover art for Shadow's Return by Lynn Flewelling, ©2007 michael komarck

 
Cover art for The White Road by Lynn Flewelling, ©2009 michael komarck

( more pics )

After several years as a projectionist at the local Cineplex, I co-founded a small publishing company. However, with the exception of illustrating several children's books, the majority of my time was spent designing business cards, ads, and eventually web related materials (mostly Flash animation). It was during this period that I was introduced to Photoshop and ultimately replaced my oils with digital paint. Eventually I left to pursue a career as a full time illustrator. I spent a couple years building a portfolio while designing business/self-help book covers to pay the bills.

In 2003 I was offered cover work for authors including Robert Asprin and George R.R. Martin. This ultimately opened the door for me to work with many of the outstanding companies listed below.

I live in Michigan with my Wife Jennifer, and Son Reese." --Michael Komarck

Clients include: Bantam Dell, Blizzard Entertainmant, Blur Studios, Catalyst Game Labs, Concept Arts, Daw Books, Electronic Arts, Fantasy Flight Games, Pyr, Solaris, Sony Online Entertainment, Subterranean Press, Tor Books, Ubisoft, Upper Deck Entertainment, White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast

http://www.komarckart.com/

Behind the Cover: Michael Komarck

"I was born in Louisiana and relocated to Michigan at a very young age. As the years passed, I transitioned from crayons to pencils to acrylics to oils, and In 1989 I found myself at a community college where my suspicions that I was better off self-taught in art where proven correct almost immediately. My stint there was brief in the extreme.

 
Cover art for Shadow's Return by Lynn Flewelling, ©2007 michael komarck

 
Cover art for The White Road by Lynn Flewelling, ©2009 michael komarck

( more pics )

After several years as a projectionist at the local Cineplex, I co-founded a small publishing company. However, with the exception of illustrating several children's books, the majority of my time was spent designing business cards, ads, and eventually web related materials (mostly Flash animation). It was during this period that I was introduced to Photoshop and ultimately replaced my oils with digital paint. Eventually I left to pursue a career as a full time illustrator. I spent a couple years building a portfolio while designing business/self-help book covers to pay the bills.

In 2003 I was offered cover work for authors including Robert Asprin and George R.R. Martin. This ultimately opened the door for me to work with many of the outstanding companies listed below.

I live in Michigan with my Wife Jennifer, and Son Reese." --Michael Komarck

Clients include: Bantam Dell, Blizzard Entertainmant, Blur Studios, Catalyst Game Labs, Concept Arts, Daw Books, Electronic Arts, Fantasy Flight Games, Pyr, Solaris, Sony Online Entertainment, Subterranean Press, Tor Books, Ubisoft, Upper Deck Entertainment, White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast

http://www.komarckart.com/

The Inside Reader: Brent Hartinger

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir Mitchell

Brent Hartinger is one of the Young Adult gay-themed novel author that is featured in almost all the Top Books lists: he is on my Top 100 and in many of the Inside Reader lists I posted. I totally expected for him to reply to my email with a "who are you?", when I sent him my proposal for being one of my Inside Readers, or maybe that he didn't reply at all, and instead Brent is also a very nice man and he kindly agreed to share his list; it's a good list, a mix of classic, modern and even personal life! Enjoy!

Here in no particular order are ten "gay" books that made me smile:

1) Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. My vote for the best "gay" novel ever written. Long before Brokeback Mountain, this tale of tragic love has more passion on a single page that many people experience in a whole lifetime. It still gives me chills -- and, like Brokeback Mountain, it's so powerful that I still can't quite bring myself to experience a second time.

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Delta (June 13, 2000)
ISBN-10: 0385334583
ISBN-13: 978-0385334587
Amazon: Giovanni's Room

Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

( books from 2 to 10 )

About Brent Hartinger: “I am Brent Hartinger, and I live to write. For the last twenty years, I have made my living writing just about everything that involves words.

I’ve been writing books since college, but I didn’t sell any of them until the summer of 2001. Since then, I’ve sold eight novels. The first four books to be published were Geography Club , a novel about a secret high school gay-straight alliance; The Last Chance Texaco , a mystery about a girl in a "last chance" group home; The Order of the Poison Oak , my sequel to Geography Club; and Grand & Humble, a psychological thriller about the intersecting lives of two kids, one popular and one a geek.

The latest Russel Middlebrook book, Split Screen: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, is actually two complete novels (one from Russel's POV and one from Min's POV) published as one book; it's out now.

My latest book is Project Sweet Life, a comedy-of-errors about three teenagers who, when forced to get summer jobs by their dads, invent "fake" jobs instead, then embark on a series of get-rich-quick schemes to make the money they're supposed to be making from their jobs. But making money isn't quite as simple as they think...

I like to write for all ages, but I particularly like writing for and about teenagers. I think it's because I identify so strongly with them (whenever I hear an adult complain about a teenager, I almost always take the side of the kid, even without hearing his or her version of the story!).

For the record, I try hard to write books that people like to read. (The most frequent comment I get from readers is that my books are "page-turners," which makes me very happy, because that is exactly what I want them to be!) My biggest complaint with books I hate is that they don't get to the point (or, worse, they don't have a point!).

My second great love is the theatre. My plays have been performed at dozens of theaters across the country. And I was recently asked to adapt Geography Club into a stage play, which was first presented (very successfully!) in Seattle in April 2004. I've also written a play version of my thriller Grand & Humble.

I also have several screenplays under option, and there is a feature film version of Geography Club in the works (no release date yet, but things look good).

And if that's not enough, I’ve written over five hundred published articles, essays, short stories, newspaper columns, cartoons, and even a few greeting cards!

I also teach writing. Want an idea what I have to say? Follow me on Twitter and get my patented Daily Writing Tips (That Also Apply to Life). Example: "Don't save the good stuff for the sequel (there may not be one)." See how it applies to both writing and life?

As a writing instructor, I occasionally join the faculty at Vermont College in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. It's a "low residency" program, which means you're only on campus a few weeks a year. But it's surprisingly rigorous. I'm enjoying teaching much more than I expected to. (Note: I'm on indefinite leave right now.)

I also edit a website devoted exclusively to fantasy: TheTorchOnline.com.

I live in Seattle, Washington, with my partner since 1992, Michael Jensen. Michael is also a writer, the author of a terrific gay western, Frontiers, and its sequel, Firelands. He also edits an amazing and influential entertainment site called AfterElton.com, which devoted to entertainment for and about gay men (I sometimes write for it too, in all my free time!).

Project Sweet Life by Brent Hartinger
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen (February 3, 2009)
Publisher Link: http://www.harperteen.com/books/9780060824112/Project_Sweet_Life/index.aspx
ISBN-10: 0060824115
ISBN-13: 978-0060824112
Amazon: Project Sweet Life

For most kids, fifteen is the year of the optional summer job: Sure, you can get a job if you really want one, but it isn't required or anything. Too bad Dave's dad doesn't agree! Instead of enjoying long days of biking, swimming, and sitting around, Dave and his two best friends are being forced by their fathers into a summer of hard labor. The friends have something else in mind, though: Not only will they not work over the summer, but they're determined to trick everyone into believing they really do have jobs. So what if the lifeguard doesn't have a tan or the fast-food worker isn't bringing home buckets of free chicken? There's only one problem: Dave's dad wants evidence that his son is actually bringing in money. And that means Dave, Curtis, and Victor will have to get some . . . without breaking the law and without doing any work! Project Sweet Life is designed for the funny and lazy bone in all of us—a true comedy of errors (without any effort!) from seasoned storyteller Brent Hartinger.

The Inside Reader: Brent Hartinger

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir Mitchell

Brent Hartinger is one of the Young Adult gay-themed novel author that is featured in almost all the Top Books lists: he is on my Top 100 and in many of the Inside Reader lists I posted. I totally expected for him to reply to my email with a "who are you?", when I sent him my proposal for being one of my Inside Readers, or maybe that he didn't reply at all, and instead Brent is also a very nice man and he kindly agreed to share his list; it's a good list, a mix of classic, modern and even personal life! Enjoy!

Here in no particular order are ten "gay" books that made me smile:

1) Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. My vote for the best "gay" novel ever written. Long before Brokeback Mountain, this tale of tragic love has more passion on a single page that many people experience in a whole lifetime. It still gives me chills -- and, like Brokeback Mountain, it's so powerful that I still can't quite bring myself to experience a second time.

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Delta (June 13, 2000)
ISBN-10: 0385334583
ISBN-13: 978-0385334587
Amazon: Giovanni's Room

Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

( books from 2 to 10 )

About Brent Hartinger: “I am Brent Hartinger, and I live to write. For the last twenty years, I have made my living writing just about everything that involves words.

I’ve been writing books since college, but I didn’t sell any of them until the summer of 2001. Since then, I’ve sold eight novels. The first four books to be published were Geography Club , a novel about a secret high school gay-straight alliance; The Last Chance Texaco , a mystery about a girl in a "last chance" group home; The Order of the Poison Oak , my sequel to Geography Club; and Grand & Humble, a psychological thriller about the intersecting lives of two kids, one popular and one a geek.

The latest Russel Middlebrook book, Split Screen: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, is actually two complete novels (one from Russel's POV and one from Min's POV) published as one book; it's out now.

My latest book is Project Sweet Life, a comedy-of-errors about three teenagers who, when forced to get summer jobs by their dads, invent "fake" jobs instead, then embark on a series of get-rich-quick schemes to make the money they're supposed to be making from their jobs. But making money isn't quite as simple as they think...

I like to write for all ages, but I particularly like writing for and about teenagers. I think it's because I identify so strongly with them (whenever I hear an adult complain about a teenager, I almost always take the side of the kid, even without hearing his or her version of the story!).

For the record, I try hard to write books that people like to read. (The most frequent comment I get from readers is that my books are "page-turners," which makes me very happy, because that is exactly what I want them to be!) My biggest complaint with books I hate is that they don't get to the point (or, worse, they don't have a point!).

My second great love is the theatre. My plays have been performed at dozens of theaters across the country. And I was recently asked to adapt Geography Club into a stage play, which was first presented (very successfully!) in Seattle in April 2004. I've also written a play version of my thriller Grand & Humble.

I also have several screenplays under option, and there is a feature film version of Geography Club in the works (no release date yet, but things look good).

And if that's not enough, I’ve written over five hundred published articles, essays, short stories, newspaper columns, cartoons, and even a few greeting cards!

I also teach writing. Want an idea what I have to say? Follow me on Twitter and get my patented Daily Writing Tips (That Also Apply to Life). Example: "Don't save the good stuff for the sequel (there may not be one)." See how it applies to both writing and life?

As a writing instructor, I occasionally join the faculty at Vermont College in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. It's a "low residency" program, which means you're only on campus a few weeks a year. But it's surprisingly rigorous. I'm enjoying teaching much more than I expected to. (Note: I'm on indefinite leave right now.)

I also edit a website devoted exclusively to fantasy: TheTorchOnline.com.

I live in Seattle, Washington, with my partner since 1992, Michael Jensen. Michael is also a writer, the author of a terrific gay western, Frontiers, and its sequel, Firelands. He also edits an amazing and influential entertainment site called AfterElton.com, which devoted to entertainment for and about gay men (I sometimes write for it too, in all my free time!).

Project Sweet Life by Brent Hartinger
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen (February 3, 2009)
Publisher Link: http://www.harperteen.com/books/9780060824112/Project_Sweet_Life/index.aspx
ISBN-10: 0060824115
ISBN-13: 978-0060824112
Amazon: Project Sweet Life

For most kids, fifteen is the year of the optional summer job: Sure, you can get a job if you really want one, but it isn't required or anything. Too bad Dave's dad doesn't agree! Instead of enjoying long days of biking, swimming, and sitting around, Dave and his two best friends are being forced by their fathers into a summer of hard labor. The friends have something else in mind, though: Not only will they not work over the summer, but they're determined to trick everyone into believing they really do have jobs. So what if the lifeguard doesn't have a tan or the fast-food worker isn't bringing home buckets of free chicken? There's only one problem: Dave's dad wants evidence that his son is actually bringing in money. And that means Dave, Curtis, and Victor will have to get some . . . without breaking the law and without doing any work! Project Sweet Life is designed for the funny and lazy bone in all of us—a true comedy of errors (without any effort!) from seasoned storyteller Brent Hartinger.

Out of Balance by Lyn Gala

Basically Out of Balance tests a theory doing exactly what that theory says not to do. In a D/s relationship it’s important that the Dominant partner knows perfectly his limits and the one of his submissive. It’s really important that the Dominant has a stable and balanced emotional level. For both partners, being in a D/s relationship has to be a choice not a need, or better the need can come after the choice.

Ryan had a very bad experience in the past, he was the victim of a paedophile, and if that wasn’t enough, he didn’t see that man pay for his actions. Now Ryan is struggling through therapy to both accept his sexuality and his needs. His therapist likes the theory of “you don’t fear what you know”, and so he entices Ryan to face his fears searching inside the BDSM world.

Ryan is living with Jeremy, the All American jock type that Ryan would never imagine being interested in those things, let alone being a submissive partner. But during his researches, Ryan finds out that Jeremy is doing his own discovery path and that he is probably ready to let a Master try him out. In Ryan’s troubled mind fears for himself, and fears for his roommate mix together, and he plans to teach Jeremy a lesson, to scare him off the BDSM world making him going through the most extreme side of it, a 24/7 Master / slave relationship.

Only that, first Jeremy, instead of being scared, is more than happy of it, and secondly, Ryan starts to enjoy being a Master, and being a Master in his mind is a negative thing. In the end it’s not Jeremy that is not able to going through his “punishment”, it’s Ryan that understands he is not ready for it.

I like this intake of the author in the story, the Master is the one who needs to grew up in his role, and the slave is instead the one who is already good for the role. It’s not the slave who has to learn the boundaries, it’s the Master who needs to measure up to his slave.

But I have to warn readers, there are some pretty extreme games here, and I’m not talking about the whole paddling and whipping scenario, that I read a lot in the past, and even in more extreme ways. It’s more the 24/7 Master/slave thing, some special cages Jeremy has to wear, not only in his intimate parts but also to teaching him non-sexual restraints, like eating. I’m not sure I fully understand the appeal of that, but again, I’m not either a big fan of the BDSM world.

In comparison to other full BDSM novels I read in the past, probably this one has also the added bonus of having really young characters, barely out of college (actually they are still in college when the story starts): their innocence and naïveté give a sweet shade to a story that, otherwise, it would be more angst.

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/out-of-balance/7327782

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Out of Balance by Lyn Gala

Basically Out of Balance tests a theory doing exactly what that theory says not to do. In a D/s relationship it’s important that the Dominant partner knows perfectly his limits and the one of his submissive. It’s really important that the Dominant has a stable and balanced emotional level. For both partners, being in a D/s relationship has to be a choice not a need, or better the need can come after the choice.

Ryan had a very bad experience in the past, he was the victim of a paedophile, and if that wasn’t enough, he didn’t see that man pay for his actions. Now Ryan is struggling through therapy to both accept his sexuality and his needs. His therapist likes the theory of “you don’t fear what you know”, and so he entices Ryan to face his fears searching inside the BDSM world.

Ryan is living with Jeremy, the All American jock type that Ryan would never imagine being interested in those things, let alone being a submissive partner. But during his researches, Ryan finds out that Jeremy is doing his own discovery path and that he is probably ready to let a Master try him out. In Ryan’s troubled mind fears for himself, and fears for his roommate mix together, and he plans to teach Jeremy a lesson, to scare him off the BDSM world making him going through the most extreme side of it, a 24/7 Master / slave relationship.

Only that, first Jeremy, instead of being scared, is more than happy of it, and secondly, Ryan starts to enjoy being a Master, and being a Master in his mind is a negative thing. In the end it’s not Jeremy that is not able to going through his “punishment”, it’s Ryan that understands he is not ready for it.

I like this intake of the author in the story, the Master is the one who needs to grew up in his role, and the slave is instead the one who is already good for the role. It’s not the slave who has to learn the boundaries, it’s the Master who needs to measure up to his slave.

But I have to warn readers, there are some pretty extreme games here, and I’m not talking about the whole paddling and whipping scenario, that I read a lot in the past, and even in more extreme ways. It’s more the 24/7 Master/slave thing, some special cages Jeremy has to wear, not only in his intimate parts but also to teaching him non-sexual restraints, like eating. I’m not sure I fully understand the appeal of that, but again, I’m not either a big fan of the BDSM world.

In comparison to other full BDSM novels I read in the past, probably this one has also the added bonus of having really young characters, barely out of college (actually they are still in college when the story starts): their innocence and naïveté give a sweet shade to a story that, otherwise, it would be more angst.

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/out-of-balance/7327782

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle