Mark Ellis (writer)

Adventure Publications

Ellis became a full-time freelance writer in 1986. In 1980, he married Melissa Martin, a graphic designer and writer who serves as his business partner.

In the mid-to-late 1980s Ellis worked as the primary writer for Adventure Publications' line of comic magazines, scripting such diverse titles as Ninja Elite, Warriors, Netherworlds, and Star Rangers, working with legendary comics artist Jim Mooney on the latter title.

In 1987–1988 Ellis created and scripted Adventure Publications' Death Hawk, a series that featured the first published work of comics artist Adam Hughes.

For other comics publishers he wrote The Justice Machine as well as short stories for the occasional anthology, such as "A Trip To Necropolis," a story which featured the last full pencil and ink by Jim Mooney.

Millennium Publications

In 1990, Ellis co-founded Millennium Publications, serving as editor, with his wife and co-founder Melissa Martin as art director. Millennium gave early exposure to such comics artists as Mike Wieringo and Darryl Banks, and utilized such industry veterans as Jim Mooney and Don Heck. Its projects included H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness a twelve-issue adaptation of Anne Rice's The Mummy or Ramses the Damned among many others.

For Millennium, Ellis conceived and scripted Nosferatu: Plague of Terror, a four-part series that provided a complete story of the title character's origin quite apart from the Dracula legend. Ellis also adapted the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild Wild West, and the horror film It! The Terror from Beyond Space into comics. Working with artist Darryl Banks he adapted the pulp fiction hero Doc Savage into the four-part miniseries Doc Savage: The Monarch of Armageddon.

The Comics Buyer's Guide Catalog of Books referred to the Ellis/Banks version of Doc Savage as having "come[s] closest to the original, capturing all the action, humanity, and humor of the original novels".

"Outlanders" and James Axler

Leaving Millennium in 1993, Ellis went on to create the "Outlanders" series for Harlequin Enterprises's Gold Eagle imprint in 1996, the first entry of which appeared in 1997. It is the most successful mass-market paperback series produced in the last 25 years.

As of 2015, Ellis is the author of over 50 books, most of them under the pen name James Axler. Although the Axler pseudonym is shared with other writers, primarily the multiple contributors to Gold Eagle's Deathlands series, Ellis has authored more novels as "James Axler" than any other writer. As of 2015, The Outlanders series has sold more than a million copies worldwide.

Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse

In 2011, Ellis was contracted to develop several graphic novel projects for Sequential Pulp, the graphic novel imprint of Dark Horse Books. Among the graphic novels in development are King Solomon's Mines, working with veteran artist Pablo Marcos. The King Solomon's Mines graphic novel was released by Ying Ko graphics in the summer of 2015.