Black Russian

When Hack’s cover artist Jonny M. was having a conversation with his friend, black standup comedian Dévyan DuMon, Dévyan went into a comic riff on racial matters and kept giving Jonny openings to join in. Jonny, being a wealthy, entitled lily-white, dude knew there was no goddamned way that he could say a word on the subject and curled up into a self-conscious pretzel, to Dévyan’s conspicuous amusement.

Hack loved hearing about Jonny’s anguish and wrote this Cold War espionage thriller to immortalize it. It sold well in Berkeley.

Wolverine & ILoveYouMan

When Hack saw how much money the superhero movie Deadpool & Wolverine was making at the box office, he decided to pen a mash-up of the X-Men anti-hero with ILoveYouMan, the superhero with super bad breath created by his cover artist Jonny M.

As is typical with Hack, he didn’t bother to acquire the rights to either hero before publishing the novel (Jonny makes so many covers for Hack’s book that he didn’t realize Hack was ripping him off until it was being printed) and was promptly sued by both Marvel and Jonny, resulting in almost every copy being pulled from circulation.

It’s a pretty compelling read if you can get your hands on it.