Max Allan Collins
© Max Allan Collins, Photo by Bamford Studio

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Taking it to the Max

Max Allan Collins knows a little something about career diversity. As a novelist, he gave birth to the popular Nate Heller detective series. As a comic book writer, he completed a run on BATMAN. And as a newspaper comic strip writer, he created 15 years of daily DICK TRACY adventures. In fact, from film scripts to song lyrics, from nonfiction to short stories, it's hard to name a publishable format in which Collins hasn't made his mark.

"If I have a strength as a writer, it's that I'm able to jump around easily," says Collins. "I understand the rules of each new medium quickly. For example, I wrote for collectible cards once. That's a very unusual writing format, but I think I picked it up quickly and well. There are a lot of other writers who are much, much better than I am, but they can't be versatile. They write novels, and that's it."

It's that versatility that governs Collins' work to this day. His current slate includes original novels set in the worlds of DARK ANGEL and CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION, a novelization of the Eddie Murphy film I SPY and an English version of the Japanese BATMAN manga CHILD OF DREAMS. Add that to his recent CAPTAIN AMERICA guest comic script and his upcoming novels based on the cult favorite PRISONER TV series, and it paints the portrait of a very busy man.