Creator Spotlight - Mark Millar

Mark Millar is a Scottish born comic book writer, and one of the most recognisable faces in the industry today.  He has successfully bridged the gap between comics and movies providing inspiration and stories for some of the most successful movies of the last decade.  So where did it all begin?


Millar's first job as a comic book writer came when he was still in High School, writing Trident's Saviour with Daniel Valley on scripting duties and Millar providing the art.  Not long after this, he interviewed a certain Grant Morrison, who was working on his first major American work with Animal Man.  At this point, Millar wanted to be a writer and an artist.  Morrison offered the young man, by Millar's own admission, some of the greatest advice he would ever receive - Just focus on one.  Pick the one that is your strongest and focus on that.

During the 90's Millar worked on titles such as 2000AD and Crisis.  In 1993 He got to work with Morrison, as they created a controversial run on 2000AD called The Summer Offensive.  They also collaborated on their first major title together, entitled Big Dave.

This work brought him to the attention of DC Comics and in 1994 he started working on Swamp Thing.  Again Morrison proved invaluable to Millar's development at this time, co scripting the first four issues.  The run was again met with plenty of critical acclaim but unfortunately it did not have the sales to match, and was brought to an abrupt close.  Millar stayed at DC for a while, again working with Morrison on many titles during that time such as JLA, the Elseworlds title Superman:Red Son and The Flash (which we always keep in stock as it is an awesome run).

In 2004, he launched a creator owned line called Millarworld that published books such as Wanted, Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, The Unfunnies, The Secret Service (otherwise known as Kingsman) and Superior.  Many of these attracted attention from Hollywood and movie success followed.  Millarworld has since been acquired by Netflix so you can expect more live action content to make its way to the screen.

In 2006, Millar partnered with artist Steve McNiven to produce the acclaimed Marvel event Civil War (another movie), and this was followed by a run on Fantastic Four with Bryan Hitch.  Another Marvel series which led to a movie (you see the pattern here right?) was Old Man Logan, an excellent Wolverine title set in the future with mutantkind all but extinct.

As well as writing for both Marvel and DC, Millar has also carved out a very successful career at Image Comics.  His runs here are of the shorter variety, usually running between 4 and 7 issues for a complete title.  These have included great stories such as Chrononauts, MPH, Huck, Starlight and Reborn.  The one exception is Jupiter's Legacy which, along with tie-in Jupiter's Circle, has been a longer running series.

Where Millar goes from here is entirely up to him.  Original content is started to come out with The Magic Order, his collaboration with artist Olivier Cooper, and first official title since signing the deal with Netflix due out in the next couple of months.  Be it movies, comics or television shows, it seems there is no medium he cannot conquer.