Meet Mike Baron of Bloody Red Baron in Fort Collins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Baron.

Mike, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I wanted to be a writer since I picked up a John D. MacDonald Travis McGee novel at a cigar store in Mitchell, SD. I drifted through college, heard there were newspapers willing to hire any literate person in Boston. I went there. My first job out of college was smoking marijuana for the government. I responded to an ad in the Boston Phoenix. We lived for a month on a hospital ward smoking govt grown dope every day and taking tests. It was just like college. When I got out, I wrote it up and that’s how I broke into journalism. I wrote for Creem, Fusion, the Boston Globe, Oui, and The Phoenix. I moved back to Madison in ’77 and that’s where I met the artist Steve Rude, with whom I created Nexus. This led to my career in comics, in which I wrote Punisher, Flash, Deadman, Star Wars, but mostly my own creations, Nexus and Badger.

I moved to Fort Collins in ’03 due to my late wife. My home life was difficult, I wasn’t getting any writing jobs, so I started going to karate every day. My brother in law Dennis paid my tuition. The thing about karate is, when you’re training, you don’t think about anything else. That’s why I went. My sensei, Kim Yee, graduated from the same high school as I. Small world. I’m still training. I’m no Bruce Lee, but I know how to choreograph a fight scene, and that comes through in my comics and novels.

It took me thirty years to learn how to write a novel. I’m a slow learner. But I got it. Biker was one of my first, and I have been writing Josh Pratt ever since. Wolfpack Press publishes Biker and will release six Josh Pratt novels this year. Josh Pratt is a reformed motorcycle hoodlum who went to prison, found God, got out and tries to turn his life around. He’s one of those self-effacing anti-heroes with one foot on one side of the law, and the other not. People come to him because he knows how to get things done when all other resources have been exhausted.

In 2016, Wordfire Press published Banshees, my novel about a satanic rock band that returns from the dead. I’m torn between crime fiction and horror. I asked my wife Ann if she would read one of my novels and her head did a three hundred and sixty degree swivel. “I can’t read any of those books! They’re too horrible! Write something I can read.”

So, I wrote Disco, about a boy who raises a mongrel pup to be World Disc Dog Champion. It’s a heart-warming tale for the whole family. Honestly, if you told me I would write something like this thirty years ago I would have laughed. We have dogs.

Has it been a smooth road?
When I first moved out here, I took any job I could get to support my late wife. I unloaded automobile bumpers, was a substitute teacher, packaged mouse pads. I returned to writing gradually, thanks to many people. Dark Horse will publish all new Nexus next year.

I have managed to avoid a real job all these years. When I was in the thick of the comic scene in the eighties, it seemed as if the good times would never end, but they did. I look back on a lot of the material I wrote and feel ashamed. But not so much recently. It took me a long time to grow up, but finally, I did, and so did my writing. These days I feel good about everything I write. If I don’t, I don’t let it out of the house.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Bloody Red Baron – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I have an LLC which I call Bloody Red Baron, but it’s just me. I’m a story-teller. I know how to grab readers by the throat and pull them seamlessly into the narrative. I’m interested in any type of compelling story. Disco surprised me as much as my friends, but I believe a writer must surprise himself if he is to surprise others. I think about the story all the time. I’m most proud of the last thing I wrote. Dark Horse will publish my Nexus novel next year, and I’m finishing the seventh Josh Pratt adventure. My current baby is Florida Man, a novel about, well, Florida Man. It incorporates every hilarious story you’ve seen, but it’s not what you’d expect. It has a heart.

“Gary Duba’s having a bad day. There’s a snake in his toilet, a rabid raccoon in the yard, and his girl Krystal’s in jail for getting naked at a Waffle House and licking the manager. With his best friend, Floyd, Gary sets out to sell his prized Barry Bonds rookie card to raise the five hundred needed for bail. But things get out of hand.”

That’s just a blurb and doesn’t hint at the depth of the story, which started as a comic book. We are going ahead with the comic book. It’s the most entertaining comic book ever written. But once I’d finished scripting the fifth and last issue, I realized I had a very detailed outline on my hands. Thus, the novel. The novel is so much more than the comic.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Well, we’re talkin’ Fort Collins. Last night, we went to see a terrific band at five pm. at Odells Brewery. There is great music virtually every night of the week. I’m also an avid biker and love the bike lanes that circle the city. I can go on a twelve-mile loop and maybe 5% is on the streets.

The traffic is very bad. I think this is a consequence of it squeezing up against the foothills, preventing western sprawl. Of course, any Los Angelen or Bostonite would laugh at what I consider traffic.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bloodyredbaron.net
• Phone: 9702157845
• Email: baron.m@comcast.net

Image Credit:
My wife, Ann

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