Mark Shainblum (born 1963 in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

) is a Canadian writer who now lives in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Though he has worked as a journalist and editor, Shainblum is best known as a science fiction and comic book writer.

Early life

In the early 1980s, Shainblum published two issues of a comics and

science fiction fanzine A science-fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science-fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day. They were one of the earliest forms of fanzine, within one of which the term "''fanzine''" ...

called ''Orion: The Canadian Magazine of Time and Space'', and later founded Matrix Graphic Series (later known as Matrix Comics), one of only a handful of independent comic book publishers in Canada at the time.

Career

His published works include: *'' Northguard'', a post-modern Canadian

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...

, created in the 1980s with illustrator

Gabriel Morrissette Gabriel Morrissette (born September 26, 1959) is a Canadian illustrator, animator and comic book artist from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Currently working for Jackfruit Press on their Prime Minister series and Chickadee on Daisy Dreamer, Gabriel co- ...

. Though Northguard was published as an independent comic book series and didn't achieve the notoriety of better-known Canadian superheroes like Richard Comely's ''

Captain Canuck Captain Canuck is a Canadian comics, Canadian comic book superhero. Created by cartoonist Ron Leishman and artist/writer Richard Comely, the original Captain Canuck first appeared in ''Captain Canuck'' #1 (July 1975). The series was the first suc ...

'' or

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...

' ''

Alpha Flight Alpha Flight is a fictional team of Canadian superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters premiered in ''The Uncanny X-Men'' #120 (April 1979), and were created to serve as part of the X-Men member Wolv ...

'', it was well received by critics and a core following of fans. The Quebec superheroine

Fleur-de-Lys The ''fleur-de-lis'', also spelled ''fleur-de-lys'' (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a common heraldic charge in the (stylized) shape of a lily (in French, and mean and respectively). Most notably, the ''fleur-de-lis'' ...

, a supporting character from the series, even made her way to a Canadian postage stamp in 1995. *''Angloman'', co-created with

. A humorous parody of politics in Shainblum's native province of Quebec, Angloman was first published in book form and then made the leap to two Montreal newspapers, the alternative newsweekly ''

Montreal Mirror ''Montreal Mirror'' or just ''Mirror'' was a free English language alternative newsweekly based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada which was distributed every Thursday. It had a circulation of 70,000 and reached a quarter of a million readers per week. ...

'' and the mass-circulation daily ''

Montreal Gazette ''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the only English-language daily newspape ...

''. With John Dupuis, Shainblum afor lso co-edited the 1998 short story collection ''Arrowdreams: An Anthology of Alternate Canadas'', which garnered a Prix Aurora Award for Canadian science fiction in 1999. Shainblum was also a finalist in the 2001 international Mark Twain Writing Competition and recently published a story in

Claude Lalumière Claude Lalumière (born 1966) is an author, book reviewer and has edited numerous anthologies. A resident of Montreal, Quebec, he writes the Montreal Gazette, ''Montreal Gazette's'' Fantastic Fiction column. He also owned and operated two indepen ...

's anthology '' Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic'' from Véhicule Press. In 2002–03, he served as president of SF Canada, Canada's national association of science fiction and fantasy authors. In 2017, he was nominated for the 2017 Aurora Awards for "Best Related Work" for "Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen." He co-authored this book with Claude Lalumière.

Awards

Current projects

Shainblum is collaborating on two webcomics projects: with artist Sandy Carruthers on a super-hero genre

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...

project entitled

Canadiana Canadiana is a term used to describe things (e.g., books, historical documents, works of art, music and artifacts), ideas, or activities that concern or are distinctive of Canada, its peoples, and/or its culture, especially works of literature ...

, and on a mystery serial, ''The Haunting of MacGrath'' with artist Jeff Alward. He also works as a communications and media relations professional.

References

External links