Writer
This section is reserved for Mark's endeavours as a writer. Most notably, this concerns his five-issue comic book series The Black Pearl. See below for information, covers and a recap. In the sidebar, find mention of other writing projects of Mark. This includes forewords to other books and the like. As usual, the list certainly isn't anywhere near exhaustive and I'll be adding anything I find.
The Black Pearl
The Black Pearl was created by Mark and his cousin Eric Johnson. Originally laid out as a screenplay, the story caught the interest of Dark Horse and Mark and Eric adapted it as a five-issue comic book series, kicking off with issue #1 in September 1996 and featuring the art of H. M. Baker.
It was collected into a trade paperback in August 1997, with an introduction by Mark himself and forewords by Peter David and Bill Mumy.
Here's what you find at the back of the trade paperback:
Luther isn't a hero. He isn't motivated by honor or justice — at BEST he's a regular guy. He went out one night; he followed that woman home because he hoped to see something. What he saw was her abduction. What he did was save her … for himself. But the newspapers and TV personalities turned it into something else and turned him into someone else. Now he's The Black Pearl, and the media won't let him quit.
Click here for Sienn's summary, but beware — spoilers ahead.
This series tells the story of Luther Drake, a man obsessed by his beautiful neighbour Tina. One evening he follows her, as he has done
many times before, and witnesses her being kidnapped by two psychopaths the police has been hunting for months.
Luther kills one of them, more by accident than by intention, and flees in a panic. What he didn't expect was the sensationalism of the media.
They make him a hero, a hero that tried to save Tina, and Luther, introvert and troubled as he is, decides to try and BE that hero. Adopting the name the
media has coined, he becomes The Black Pearl and actually succeeds in freeing Tina.
He takes a liking to the hero business and believes he's got a handle on the situation, but things spiral out of control as he starts losing sight of what's
right and what's wrong. To some he is a hero, to others he is a criminal and Tina, only recently saved from a horrible
death, still is in danger, a danger
that he knows of and desperately wants to protect her from.
Things keep heating up and by the time Luther realises he must somehow quit the game before it leads to complete catastrophe, it might already be too late …