B I O

Since my first novel, Clickers, was published in 1999, it remains one of my most popular novels.

Unfortunately the accolades it has received, and the recognition my name has gotten from the book has overclouded the name of the novel's initial creator and co-writer -- my friend, Mark Williams.

Bottom line: the initial idea for Clickers came from Mark Williams, not me. Despite the fact that we both wrote the book and I came up with some of the character development and plot twists, the basic arc of the story was Mark's creation.

Since its creation, I've seen more novels published and scores of short stories (with some collected in Maternal Instinct and Old Ghosts and Other Revenants). I've co-edited an anthology of monster stories with Garrett Peck, which also owes its inspiration to Mark Williams' fevered imagination (more on that later). Even if Clickers had never been published, I think I'd be at the stage I'm at now in my writing career, but that novel would not be a part of my canon of published fiction. But because it is, Mark's name is often overlooked. Mark was a tremendously gifted artist, a good friend, and a gentle person. Since not much is written about him when my name, and our co-written novel, is mentioned, I'll rectify this here now, in this special web page.

Mark Everett Williams was born December 18, 1959 in San Jose. He was the only child of Bill and Jeanne Williams. Growing up in San Jose, California, Mark was drawn to the science fiction and horror films of the 1950's and 1960's, and was an avid fan of monster movies, books, and magazines. This interest led him to explore art, and by the time he was a teenager he was already creating artwork that family members and teachers considered professional.

In high school, Mark played center for the Archbishop Mitty High School football Monarchs. He was also an avid rock and roller; his favorite bands were Alice Cooper and Kiss. His interest in science fiction and horror never waned, and he became involved in SF fandom in the Bay Area in the late 1970's. By the time he graduated from high school in 1977, he already knew that his career lied in the creative arts. By the early eighties he was fulfilling that dream as a staff artist for Hero Games, creating artwork for their Champions role playing games.

It was around this time that he began dabbling in films as a special effects artist. One of his friends at the time, Kevin Danzey, was a burgeoning film director, and he and Mark teamed up and created numerous short films together. Most of them were heavily influenced by 50's B-movies, and Mark designed various creature effects for them but the films were never released to the general public and Mark was restless. By this time, he was traveling to and from Los Angeles to hang out on the Sunset Strip and was part of the underground heavy metal scene there, and he was also still heavily into SF fandom. It was through his fandom contacts that he got hooked up with veteran creature FX maven/actor/producer/all around horror film renaissance man Bob Burns, who eventually hired him for his first professional gig in the film industry. This was in 1984. Mark would move to Los Angeles permanently in 1985, first sharing an apartment with friends, eventually moving to the apartment he kept in North Hollywood in 1986 where he lived until he died.

Through that initial job from Bob Burns, Mark landed other jobs in the FX industry. In 1987 he opened his own FX studio, creating the special effects for more than 60 films. He worked as an effects technician on the films Aliens, The Fly, The Abyss, Return to Salem's Lot, The Brain, Blue Monkey, Wicked Stepmother, and Terminator 2, even playing a bit part in T2. In total, he created the FX for, or was involved with the FX crew on some level, in more than 60 films. He worked with filmmakers as diverse as Sam Fuller, Larry Cohen, and James Cameron.

Not content to rest on his laurels in film, Mark's contacts in the music industry landed him effects design coordinator for Alice Cooper's live shows. Mark toured with Alice four times (and is credited on Alice Cooper Live in Detroit video/DVD), and helped him land similar work for bands like Dangerous Toys and Poison. His relationship with the latter band sparked a friendship with drummer Rikki Rockett; more on that later.

Mark was writing at this time as well. His earliest literary influences were H. P. Lovecraft, and he contributed to a couple of Mythos oriented fanzines (two short stories and some essays) in the early to mid-eighties. From that point on, most of his writing was devoted to original screenplays. He wrote more than a dozen spec scripts as well as a dozen for-hire screenplays for an ultra-low budget producer/director in the mid 1990's and the less said about those the better (some of these films were produced and are available; originally I wasn't going to list them here, but since Mark did the work under his own name and is often credited in various internet movie databases in connection with these films, I will do so here with one caveat: Mark hated these films and disowned them almost immediately upon their completion). In late 1991 he set down an outline and the first few chapters of a horror novel he called Wave of Terror. And that's where I now insert myself in this narrative.

I first met Mark Williams in September of 1991, at a book signing at Dangerous Visions. One of the first things he told me was that people often mistook him for "one of those Iniquities guys" (being that Buddy Martinez, Mark Williams and I were black leather jacket, long-haired rock and roll looking guys back then). We started talking and discovered we had a lot in common: rock and roll, horror books and films. Mark bragged about all the films he'd worked on, and all the rock stars he knew. I thought he was bullshitting me and jokingly told him I wanted to meet a rock star. When he told me he'd introduce me to Rikki Rockett I took him up on the offer, thinking he was full of shit.

He called me a week later. "Want to come to Rikki's house with me?"

"Yeah, sure." Jeez, this guy doesn't give up this bullshit fantasy, doesn't he?

When we pulled up to Rikki's home an hour or so later in Studio City, my first thought was (as I looked up at the gated home that could have only been owned by a rock star or some other celebrity) okay, maybe this guy isn't bullshitting me after all.

And he wasn't. Rikki turned out to be a very down-to-earth guy, and we had a good time that evening on all the other subsequent times we got together. Mark and I would become close friends, even though I later learned that some of the wild tales he told were exactly that -- wild tales. Working in Hollywood meant Mark had developed his hype talents and he could hype any little anecdote, any little situation, into something huge. His closest friends will know what I'm saying when I mention the name Morgan Fairchild in this light (okay guys, now stop laughing!).

It was around this time (late 1991 and 1992) that Mark and I both hit low points in our careers and personal lives. Thanks to computer animation, traditional FX work had dried up and Mark was barely making rent. The difference between how Mark and I handled our individual circumstances was that I worked temp jobs for a few years, one of them eventually leading to a full-time job which I held for many years. Mark refused to look for work outside his chosen career, and for that went through desperate times. He did a few pick up jobs in the film industry throughout 1992, and things picked up briefly for him in 1993 when he worked on several low budget films, all of them straight to video releases (one of these, Night of the Werewolf, was so bad that it wound up on Mystery Science Theatre 3000; Mark was honored that his cameo appearance in the film was lampooned). He continued writing screenplays, and we collaborated on one together called "Butcher's Dozen." Mark's agent shopped it around briefly but there were no takers. It wouldn't get interest again until shortly before his death.

It was also during this time that Mark's apartment became a haven for several of the Los Angeles area horror writer/film people who would gather there on Friday evenings to watch B-movies and indulge in junk food. This became jokingly known as the "Friday Night Guy's Without Dates" club. I wasn't a member, but I did show up a few times. Most of the guys that came over were the same core guys: film director David DeCoteau, producer/director (and, for one issue, former Weird Tales editor) Ted Newsom, Afraid Magazine publisher Mike Baker, composer Brian Benison, and a few others. Mark was writing a column for Afraid Magazine at this time as well, geared toward cheesy horror novels. His column was called "A Slice of Cheese."

In September or October of 1993, Mark and I started working on Wave of Terror, which would later become Clickers. Its birth and subsequent rewriting can be documented on the Clickers page. In early 1994, Mark had to step back from the book for awhile to earn money churning out goofy scripts for the aforementioned sleazy low budget producer, as well as create goofy special effects for his films and, at one point, star in one of his goofy movies. These movies are so bad they can't even be called movies, much less films. They're so bad they'll never wind up on Mystery Science 3000. Mark was embarrassed by them, but he desperately needed the money and he got paid a flat fee for his work with the promise of an equal partnership in the royalties. The few films that were released were never successful enough to earn Mark anything beyond his initial fee.

After about a year of that, Mark and Rikki Rockett teamed up and created a comic book series called Sisters of Mercy together, which they pitched to Maximum Press, who released two issues in late 1995. They formed their own publishing company, No Mercy Comics, in early 1996 and released the third issue of Sisters of Mercy under that imprint, going on to produce the series for another year-and-a-half and several spin-offs. Largely science fiction, it is set in a very dark dystopian future and contained a lot of horrific imagery. At the tail end of the venture the first (and only issue) of a new series, Nightshade, was released. Wholly created, written, and drawn by Mark, it was Lovecraftian in tone and theme, and the story boards for the next few issues promised to be very exciting. Alas, they would never be published. No Mercy Comics suspended publication of all their titles in late 1997, just as the comic industry in general was experiencing a downturn. Ironically, just as the comics industry took a downturn, Mark was offered an FX job by Dave Decoteau who was directing a film for Full Moon Productions. Mark accepted the offer, and between late 1997 and May 1998, he worked on the creature FX for Curse of the Puppet Master, Blood Dolls, The Talisman, and other films.

In February 1998 he traveled to Romania to work on Frankenstein Reborn, a DeCoteau directed effort for Full Moon. Life was looking good. Full Moon had offered Mark a full-time job as Head of Special Effects, and the company had optioned several of his scripts. There was even talk of Mark directing a film for Full Moon. There was also interest in 'Butcher's Dozen' the script he and I had written together.

In March of 1998 Mark was diagnosed with an advanced stage of testicular cancer. He later admitted he had felt the lump three or four years earlier but had put off seeking treatment due to his chronic unemployment and lack of health insurance. Despite the cancer's advanced stage and the fact that it had metastasized to his lower spine, his prognosis for recovery was very good. After one surgery and a regimen of radiation therapy, Mark was once again working.

In mid May of 1998 he began experiencing heavy fatigue along with shortness of breath. The symptoms worsened throughout the week and he stayed home from work Thursday and Friday. When a couple of the guys from the Friday Night Guys Without Dates club arrived that evening and saw his condition they insisted on taking him to the hospital. He was admitted that evening to Kaiser Permanente Hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia, probably caused from a combination of the depletion of his white cell count from the radiation treatment and his dogged determination to continue working (to this date I am firmly convinced that had he sought medical attention at the first sign of his fatigue and shortness of breath that it never would have developed into full-blown pneumonia). He didn't handle the news well, and he remained under heavy sedation to calm his nerves. Unfortunately, the pneumonia had set in deep and he died a week-and-half later, on May 28, 1998.

Since his untimely death, the last few films he worked on with David DeCoteau were released by Full Moon Productions. In October of 1999 Clickers was released by Hard Shell Word Factory and was reprinted in trade paperback by DarkTales Publications. The novel went on to capture the attention of the small, but vibrant hardcore horror community, and in 2001 Garrett Peck took the cue from an off-chance remark made by me in an interview regarding an anthology Mark and I had jokingly proposed to edit together and suggested we develop it. The first volume of that project, Tooth and Claw, was released to widespread critical acclaim in October 2002 and contains a reproduction of a painting by Mark Williams, one he had created as part of the original joke.

As I wrote in an earlier blog on Mark Williams, not a day goes by when I don't think about him. I wish he were still here, and I still think he should be here whenever somebody asks me to inscribe a copy of Clickers to them. It's wrong that I have to sign that book by myself.

But as long as that book is around, as well as the numerous films Mark had a hand in creating, Mark's memory will live on.