PRO SE PRODUCTIONS SIGNS PROSE AND COMIC AUTHOR LOU MOUGIN

A publisher of Genre Fiction and New Pulp, Pro Se Productions proudly announces the addition of a writer that many of today’s authors found as inspirational for years, even though they were not aware of his real name.  Prose and Comic scribe Lou Mougin joins Pro Se’s impressive catalog of creators, bringing his skills and talent to properties licensed to Pro Se, as well as to Pro Se’s PulpStudies imprint and even original work.

“Regardless of your opinion of fanfiction,” says Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief and Partner in Pro Se Productions, “many of the writers known in New Pulp and beyond today got their start there.  We, and yes, I’m included on that list, found audiences for work that we wanted to write with characters we wanted to tell stories about.  It was a great venue for aspiring creators to get a sense of several things, including what readers wanted and if we as creators had the ability to give it to them.  During those years, there was one voice that stood out as unique, not only for his love of the costumed hero, which was obvious in his work, but for his penchant of pulling in every aspect of every character, including a few super powered kitchen sinks possibly, and turning out stories that were simply fantastic fun romps through comicdom.  What made it even more intriguing was that he chose to go by a mysterious name. For years we all knew him only as ‘DarkMark’.  And I’m sort of tickled to death to say that now, so many years later, I get to publish DarkMark’s work, giving the man behind the non de plume the credit he deserves.

“Lou’s work not only inspired a young college kid, that would be me, to push harder in wanting to tell stories, but he provided a lot of writers with motivation and ways to improve their writing.  I’ve talked to many authors over the years since our fanfiction ‘halcyon’ days, at least we thought they were, and many of them have cited Lou’s work as an influence, either because of his simple and straight forward, yet engaging writing style or because he showed us to have no fear in where we took our tales.  It’s a complete pleasure to say that Lou Mougin is now one of Pro Se’s many talented authors.”

Lou Mougin was born in late 1954 to two wonderful people.  A few years thereafter, probably in 1958, his mom proceeded to corrupt him with an issue of MOUSE MUSKETEERS.  From then on, his course was set in stone. He spent his years from childhood forward making up stories.  Lots and lots of stories. 

In 1963, he purchased METAL MEN #2 and WORLD’S FINEST #134 at the same time.  From there, he was hopelessly lost to superheroes, though he would appreciate many other forms of comics and literature both high and low. 

By the early 1980’s, a few well-received articles netted him a place in the fanzine circuit.  Repeatedly, he tried to sell stories to the comics.  The first of these were five short Inhumans stories intended for WHAT IF?, with art by Rich Howell.

Following this, Lou sold a few Heap plots to Eclipse for AIRBOY, a Swordsman origin story to Marvel for AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT, and a couple of Sparkplug stories to Heroic for LEAGUE OF CHAMPIONS.  This led to a regular gig scripting the SPARKPLUG mini-series and the League’s regular comic, which did not materialize as Heroic suspended publication. Somewhere along the way, he managed to sell a few Elvira stories to Claypool, thanks to old friend Richard Howell. 

In between, however, he was inspired to try writing faux stories of superheroes without hope of formal publication or pay.  These efforts were sometimes well-received and gave him a lot of hope in the interim years.  They also gave him a lot of training in doing the costumed set in prose, which was to prove invaluable.

In 2014, Heroic Publishing had returned to publishing, and Pro Se Productions was doing adaptations of Liberty Girl and other characters from the Heroic stable.  Since other friends had been nagging him to try his hand at New Pulp, he cooked up a Liberty Girl story and submitted it.   This work, among others, have now been accepted by Pro Se Productions.

Since then, he’s done more prose stories featuring the Heroic crew for Pro Se, along with a couple of stories for THE CHARLTON ARROW, a new anthology dedicated to one of the best underdog comics publishers of all time.  (Thanks, Roger and Mort!)  A little more comic work is on the horizon. 

Lou Mougin writes every night now.  And he is happy.

For interviews with this author, please contact Morgan McKay, Pro Se’s Director of Corporate Operations, at directorofcorporateoperations@prose-press.com.

To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com and like Pro Se on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.