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Mark Shainblum (Northguard)
Mark Shainblum was born in Montreal in 1963 and was educated at Concordia University (B.A., 1985) and McGill University (Diploma in Education, 1993). From 1981 to 1982 he published two issues of Orion, an ambitious Canadian science-fiction and comics magazine. In 1984 he launched a comics publishing company, Matrix Graphic Series. The main Matrix title was the comic book New Triumph Featuring Northguard, which showcased a national superhero co-created by Shainblum (writer) and the artist Gabriel Morrissette. Five issues of New Triumph appeared before Matrix ceased publishing in 1988; however, Northguard was briefly resurrected a few years later in the pages of the comic book Northguard, published by the U.S. firm Caliber Press (1989–1990).
In 1995 Northguard's associate, the heroine Fleur de Lys, appeared on a Canadian postage stamp. During the 1990s, Shainblum worked as a freelance writer, contributing to Quill and Quire, the Montreal weekly Hour and other publications. In 1998 he co-edited Arrowdreams, a Canadian alternate-history anthology that won the 1999 Aurora Award. Shainblum has also continued to contribute to the comics field. In 1995 he co-created the satirical superhero Angloman with Gabriel Morrissette. That same year, Shainblum wrote scripts for the short-lived "Captain Canuck" newspaper strip. Moreover, in 1999, he and the artist Sandy Carruthers collaborated on a Captain Canuck comic book project, which remains largely unpublished. Currently, he is working as the head writer at Airborne Entertainment, a humour content provider for the new, wireless Web.
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