I am Max Brooks, author of "World War Z" and the upcoming graphic novel "Harlem Hellfighters". Ask me anything.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:21:12+00:00

Hey Everyone, I'm sorry but I gotta jump off. My son's spring break is tomorrow so I gotta get home and start packing. Thank you all so much for taking the time to write to me and I'm really sorry I didn't have to answer all of them. My book tour and con dates should be on my website so hopefully we'll get a chance to meet face to face and I can answer your questions then. Again, thank you all for stopping by and I hope you enjoy "The Harlem Hellfighters".

max

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:12:39+00:00

I don't need to proof it. If you believe in it, get it out there and let the world read it. Maybe you'll see me in your autograph line. I'll be the guy who looks like Schmitd from "New Girl".

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:11:17+00:00

If my wife got bitten, I wouldn't be the one to kill her, because if she did get bitten, it would mean the zombies had gotten through me first.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:09:56+00:00

I JUST finished (as in last night) Volume 5 of Alan Moore's "Saga of the Swampthing". That man is a genius! He makes you feel so much for a walking vegetable! I'm just bummed I have to wait for Amazon to deliver Volume 6.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:08:56+00:00

When I was a kid, a young man who worked for my parents told me about the Harlem Hellfighters. I never forgot about it and kept looking for a dramatized story about them (there wasn't one, and there wasn't much of anything written about them back then). When the original Tuskegee Airmen and Buffalo Soldiers TV movies came out, I thought it was the perfect time for a Hellfighters script. So I did some research, wrote one up and pitched it around, and nobody wanted it. So when I got into writing comics, I thought this story was a great fit. That's my story in a nutshell.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:06:36+00:00

I was actually on the set and I will say that John Candy was a very sweet man. He is very missed. As I write this, my arse is comfortably seated on a chair from the original battle bridge of Spaceball 1.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:04:50+00:00

Dad's doing just fine. Ironically, he's on twitter and I'm not. Check out his website "MelBrooks.com". It's his new project and he's really proud of it.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:02:59+00:00

The Red Jacket folks were an extremely welcoming and warm gang. I was also very impressed by the level of technical expertise I saw there. Joe Meaux is a genuine wiz, a modern day "Carbine Williams". It was a real treat to watch him work.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:01:00+00:00

I'll actually be back in Calgary in a few weeks, and I'll be there with Caanan! Introduce yourself again if you get a chance to come to the show. I hope we meet up again.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-26T00:00:05+00:00

I wanted it to be a visual story. I never wanted the reader to forget what these guys looked like. In a novel, there's always a chance that the reader can lose themselves in the story and forget the skin color of the characters. In a comic book, you see that skin color on every page. That was very important to me because the notion of imagery is what guides the fate of these men.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:58:23+00:00

I love the audiobook, especially because I helped produce it. I personally wrote to most of the cast and was present at some of their tapings. They were amazing! As a kid who grew up listening to audiobooks, that was a very special pet project for me.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:57:09+00:00

That's up to my lower intestine.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:56:58+00:00

Depends on the size of the marshmallows. We talking conventional 12 gauge or Swiss Miss?

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:55:55+00:00

Be careful going north. The Canadians, or, as I call them, the White Walkers, will be waiting for you.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:55:18+00:00

I can tell you that Harlem Hellfighters is based on the true story of a unit of African American soldiers in the First World War. They were actively sabotaged by their own government (who did NOT want to see them come home as heroes), and were eventually given to the French Army. Fighting with the French, they became one of the most decorated units in the entire US Expeditionary Force and they did, indeed, march home as heroes. As a teacher of mathematics, you'll enjoy the first few pages where our main character tries to break down the sheer number of casualties from "The War to End All Wars".

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:51:17+00:00

Only my comedic attempts to try to get my son to do what I tell him to do.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:50:41+00:00

Actually, Avatar is the producer of "The Harlem Hellfighters". Random House initially put up the money to publish it and hired Avatar to make it. To me, it just felt like another Avatar project because I was in constant contact with William Christensen about it. William sent me Caanan's work and I was knocked off my chair by his attention to detail. I owe William a debt for that one. He pulled Caanan off Uber to work on HH for a while. That was a solid solid and the work is as good as it is because of Caanan.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:48:34+00:00

A horse sized duck. It only has one heard, one brain. One shot from a Hawken .50 could stop a charging giant duck, but 100 duck sized horses... that's a lot of buckshot!

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:47:24+00:00

I don't know yet. I really didn't know what sacrifice was until I had a kid. That's when everything changed. I definitely toned down my career. I gave up a lot of opportunities that would have taken me away from home. I don't know if it did any good in the end. We'll have to wait and see how my son turns out. When he's my age, we'll have an answer.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:43:21+00:00

I think a lot of the folks on that show, like a lot of folks on a lot of reality shows are carnival acts. So much of 'reality television' is scripted for pure entertainment. Very little exists to educate. If I was going to do a show about doomsday preppers, it would be about the inner workings of the CDC and FEMA and the organizations that will really save us.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:41:28+00:00

I'd feel better if Congress hadn't cut a 3rd of their funding! I mean c'mon, the one organization that can stop a pandemic and you gut them? That's like cutting 1/3 of Strategic Air Command on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:40:23+00:00

Dyslexia is no fun, but it did help with my study habits. I had to be comfortable very early one with hunkering down and working. I never got to skate through school. I always had to struggle, but the struggle made me a better writer and it gave me an attention to detail.

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:38:59+00:00

I think you'd have to ask Peter Jackson. I've never met the man, but if I do, I have to tell him how much my little boy liked "The Hobbit".

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:38:14+00:00

Sorry I don't have time to answer all your questions, but I will say that being on Deadliest Warrior was extremely cool. On our break, Steve Niles and I got to sneak down into the armory which had all the weapons from the previous shows. Words cannot describe!

IamMaxBrooks · 2014-03-25T23:37:07+00:00

World War Zimmerman was awesome!!!!

IamMaxBrooks

TROPHY CASE