off-duty, unusually surly

BRIEF  BIO

Mike Kennedy began writing in 1992, with the self-published serialized novella THAT CHEMICAL REFLEX.  Other than various articles written for such cyber-generation magazines as Mondo2000 and Axcess Magazine, his first professional comic gig came in 1999, writing the adventures of Dark Horse’s sexy, spectral, vigilante hero, GHOST.  This was followed by a GHOST/BATGIRL crossover with DC comics, and a number of STAR WARS books, including UNDERWORLD and QUI-GON AND OBI-WAN: THE AURORIENT EXPRESS.  The success of these books led to the creation of a new franchise for Dark Horse entitled LONE WOLF 2100, a futuristic re-imagining of the classic Japanese samurai series Lone Wolf and Cub.  His most recent works include ALIEN VS PREDATOR: THRILL OF THE HUNT and its upcoming sequel, CIVILIZED BEASTS.  2005 saw the release of a hardcover graphic novel for DC entitled SUPERMAN: INFINITE CITY, with artist Carlos Meglia.  He also wrote AEON FLUX for Dark Horse and MTV, which led into the live action blockbuster starring Charlize Theron.

Mike has spent the last 15 years developing video games for such publishers as Namco, Activision, and 3DO.  He now lives in Chicago, Illinois, designing and directing narrative game play material for software super-giant Electronic Arts.
 

BLOG

Thursday, Oct 11 2007

 Sigh.  This site is tough to keep up with, sorry.  The past 3 months have been super busy, what with ComicCon, WizardWorld, GenCon, about a half-dozen drives out to Michigan for wedding stuff -- did I mention I got engaged? -- and a whole bunch of EA work, including a week in LA directing some voice over sessions for this new Marvel Fighting game we're working on.  Finally past the crunch however, with a big relaxing span of weeks stretching off to the horizon, so hopefully this site will soon get A COMPLETE MAKEOVER.  That's right, its time to learn Flash and take on some semblance of professionalism.  Like anyone has even bothered seeing THIS site.  maybe the next one will be a bit more eye-catching.

In the meantime, I've started posting a tad more regularly to a more art-and-project related blog here.  Check it out; it has some pages from the new AvP book coming out pretty soon...

  

Tuesday, July 24 2007

 Last Friday, Liz and I sat in with the guys at Around Comics.com for their weekly comic-related podcast.  It was fun!  The topic was Video games and Comics, so they had me and another guy from EA sit in as guests.  That show was a lot of fun, so we sat in on the following show, which was actually posted first, last night.  In it, you can hear my sweetie gush about Warren Ellis's Fell and Optic Nerve and Aeon Flux etc...

The guys were great, and it was nice to meet artist Skottie Young, who's currently drawing the New X-Men.  His stuff is fantastic, and it was nice to hear that he was familiar with a few of my books already (mostly for Meglia's art, but hey -- I ain't complaining!)

The topic show will be posted this Thursday.  Be sure to check it out, and let me know what you think!

  

Monday, July 23 2007

 Wh-what the...??!??  THE HELL?!??  How'd it get to be 2007 already?!?!?????

MAN, time flies when you're a hard working wage-earner for a software supergiant... Since the last post, a ton has happened:

- We finished DEF JAM: ICON, to pretty good reviews and sales.
- I knocked out two scripts for those Stan Lee comics (but took my name off them, since they were, um, well... let's just say very little of my words were left once Stan was done with it...)
- I started working on the next project for the software supergiant (to be announced at ComicCon this weekend.
- I put many wheels in motion (iow. spent c-c-cash) on a couple of personal, creator-owned projects, to be revealed soon...
- I got engaged.  :)

If that weren't plenty to spend a year on, I'm sure I could dig up some other distracting excuses (video games, Lost, um... sunspots?)

But yeah, I'm back, and hopefully will update this more frequently for the 3 of you who actually visit on occasion. (Hi, Mom!)   Looking forward to ComicCon this weekend, and if you're gonna be in San Diego, give me a shout!

  

Saturday, Sept 9 2006

 Whew, fun couple of months.  Hella busy, but there's actually a couple things to show for it--

Just saw that Superman: Infinite City is hitting shelves in softcover now... that makes three editions in print -- hardcover, softcover, and French! 

Issue 6 of Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures finally saw daylight a couple weeks back.  Not much to roar about, but its something...

On top of that, I also just finished a couple of mini-comics for two of Stan "the Man" Lee's upcoming straight-to-DVD animated features.  It seemed at first like potential pocket change for what could have been embarrassingly-goofy superhero standard, approved by one of Stan's many, many legions of assistants, but apparently The Man himself has been reading and reviewing my stuff!  I've got no proof other than the email the editor has been forwarding with 'Stan's notes', which could have been any one of those legions of assistants really, but they've been pretty positive overall, and its stunning to get three-degrees away from an honest-to-God legend...

Yeah, just when it seemed like this was gonna be a dog-slow year on the comic-front, a couple of projects from ages back pop up like ghosts...  

  

Tuesday, July 25 2006

 Picking up my mail from the long week away, I was surprised to find a padded envelope from DC Comics awaiting me.  No idea what they could be sending me; my work on Superman was done ages ago, and the book hit the shelves (gasp) a whole year ago.

In the states, that is.  What they sent was a copy of the French edition, still in hardcover, published by Panini Comics in Paris!  Whoo-hoo!  Je suis international!

  

Tuesday, July 25 2006

 Another ComicCon down and out.  I think that was my 18th in a row.  Not kidding.  I've been going since 1988, if you can believe that.  I can't.  It was a sobering moment when I realized I first met the Dark Horse guys on their second year out of the gate, and -- HOLY CRAP -- they just celebrated their 20th anniversary.  Holy crap.

But it was fun, sharing it for the first time with my girlfriend (as, coincidentally, our one-year anniversary trip).  Got to hang out and catch up with good friends and artists -- Randy Stradley, Chris Warner, Francisco Ruiz Velasco, Timothy Green, Khari Evans, Jeremy Barlow, etc etc -- and casually absorbed just enough of this year's Nerdvana to last me until next year.  Or next weekends Wizard World Chicago, at least.

The theme of the show seemed to be "Legend-spotting" -- Lone Wolf creator KAZUO KOIKE made his first American convention appearance, and I got within feet of him at the airport as we both were leaving from the same gate.  (Modesty, and admittedly some uncertainty over Lone Wolf 2100, kept me from approaching.)  We were at the Weta party on the Westgate roof as the hosts dedicated seven life-sized statues of RAY HARRYHAUSEN, to be placed at various locations around the world.  The man himself was there to accept the honor, and he looked great.  Again, he came within feet, yet again I refrained from approaching.  And to cap the trilogy, JEAN "MOEBIUS" GIRAUD himself was at the show promoting the Halo graphic novel, and -- yeah, you guessed it: mere feet away, unapproached.

But no regrets.  Just sharing space with them was amazing.  And being able to play in the same creative continent as them is awesome enough.

  

Weds, July 19 2006

 Holy crap.  A year between Blog entries.  How sad is that?  And 11 months between site updates?  Yow, you know this cat musta been busy...

But I'm minutes away from hopping on a plane to San Diego for the annual nerdapalooza called Comic Con.  Nothing to sign or shill this year, so I'll just be wandering the floors in a semi-sober display of aimless je ne sais quoi.  If you see me there, say hi, but please don't take offense if I assume you're just some chemical hallucination since -- lets be honest -- no one actually visits this site.  Hell, I doubt anyone will ever actually read these words.  (But you're welcome to drop me a note and prove me wrong...)

If you can't make it to San Diego, I'll have a table at Wizard World Chicago Aug 4-5, pawning my overstock at rock-bottom prices!  (Rock bottom = cover price, but I'll throw in a scribble for FREE!)

  

Saturday, July 23 2005

 First entry, just to get something up here.  If you're reading this, huge thanks for showing interest!  Hopefully you won't demand these minutes back, because that's something beyond my ability to give to you.  So the best we can both do is try to make this worthwhile, eh?

Last weekend was the great big knockdown-dragout that is the San Diego ComicCon.  It was MASSIVE.  Someone said there were over 100,000 people there this year.  Thats like a fully populated city.  A city of misfits, colorful and cheery, scrambling around the convention center like kids in a candy store.  God bless 'em all.  Met a bunch of people at the DC booth whilst signing Superman: Infinite City, and a bunch more at the Aeon  Flux event.  Charlize Theron was brought in via commando-insertion and whisked quickly away after the presentation, but she sure looked nice.  Got to talk to Peter Chung for a bit while waiting in the VIP room, which was very cool.  Got him to sign an original cel from the show, which was my single unabashedly-geeky moment of the show.  He was very cool and open (and expertly guarded about his real opinions of the film... It takes a big man to know when to speak in political correctness against your better instincts...)

All in all, it was a great show.  Got to see a bunch of friends I hadn't seen in a while, and meet a lot of new people.  Wizard World Chicago is in a couple weeks, to which I've never been, so we'll have to see how it compares.  (And if anyone's planning on going, look me up.  I'll have a table, if they're still available.)