**This article originally appeared in our November 2026 issue**
Photos by Alison Bachorik
“I like to draw in a very cartoon-y way while also being interested in darker, more complicated stories that feel more mature. I’ve always reckoned with how those two things fit together.”
Ira Marcks, the Wynantskill-based graphic novelist, will release Snake Night, the conclusion to his Midnight Movie Adventures series, on November 4.
The first two installments in the middle-grade graphic novel series, Shark Summer and Spirit Week, were released to critical acclaim, with a New York Times review calling Shark Summer “a meta-graphic novel that manages to deconstruct a genre, pay tribute to it and keep the reader happily inside it all at the same time.”
Ahead of the release of Snake Night, I sat down with Marcks to discuss his journey to becoming an acclaimed graphic novelist, the Midnight Movie Adventures series, and what the future holds after the release of the series’ conclusion.
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Marcks, a native of Sandy Creek near Lake Ontario (fuck Trump and his Lake America bullshit; it’s Lake Ontario), came to the Capital Region in 2009 to link up with friends he started a band with. He never left. He lived through the closure of Valentine’s, which basically means he’s a true Capital Region resident.
In his early years, Marcks got into comics as another outlet for his creativity and as a way to connect with like-minded friends.
“I liked that it was an independent voice space and something that you could do with your friends,” says Marcks. “It was just like making a movie or being in a band, and I just never really moved on past that.”
It wasn’t the serialized Marvel comics that spoke to Marcks, but rather the “independent, creator-owned visions.” He specifically recalls Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez, who later created Invader Zim, as the one that made him a true “comic fan.”
Marcks never set out to be a published author, more than happy to just “scrape by and make his things.” But, with a couple Kickstarter campaigns and some friends who were talented video producers, the ball started rolling in a direction he wasn’t quite prepared for.
“I accidentally presented myself as a [air quotes] professional independent creator,” jokes Marcks. “An agent reached out to me and said, ‘I really like your Kickstarter, and I think we can try to sell this book.’ Why wouldn’t I want to level up and try working in a larger venue with a traditional publisher?”
After five years of fits and starts, Marcks finally found an idea and a publisher who was willing to take a chance on him.
As an avid movie lover, Marcks was particularly fascinated with the lore and aura of where and how a movie was made. So he conceived of a story where kids are trying to solve a “Scooby-Doo-like mystery behind the scenes of Jaws.” This became Shark Summer.
Just like the movies, when Shark Summer started selling well and was met with some level of acclaim, the publisher came back asking Marcks about what’s next.
“If I were smarter, I would have found a template that I could kind of recycle,” Marcks remarks, self-deprecatingly. “When my editor came and asked, ‘What’s next?’ I figured I had to find another movie.”
With Jaws, which, according to Marcks, was Spielberg’s pinnacle as far as “authentic filmmaking mixed with blockbuster appeal” (being a child of the ‘90s, I would argue it’s Jurassic Park, but that’s neither here nor there), he had set a pretty high bar to match.
He eventually landed on The Shining because of the iconic aesthetic of the Overlook Hotel, which, in his follow-up, Spirit Week, became the Underlook cared for by Jack Axworth. Spirit Week takes the Elijah character, whose father is a journalist and moves around a lot, and drops him into a fresh setting where he meets up with a new cast of characters.
With the second novel, Marcks started to feel the push-pull of wanting to make something that fulfilled his creative vision while also creating something that would fit into the middle-grade market that he had found a niche within.
“I like to draw in a very cartoon-y way while also being interested in darker, more complicated stories that feel more mature,” explains Marcks. “I’ve always reckoned with how those two things fit together. A lot of the work behind these books is lightening the touch so that they remain kid-friendly.”
The compromise led to Marcks trying to create the uncomfortable feeling of being haunted that comes from watching Kubrick’s The Shining, without ever showing a ghost or any violence. And while Spirit Week didn’t sell as well as Shark Summer, Marcks still expresses a lot of pride over the project.
It also, ultimately, sold well enough that Marcks was able to get a third book out of it. He went back to the movie well while reflecting on what didn’t work with Spirit Week.
“Spirit Week takes place in this darker, weirder place and in a movie these kids have never seen,” he says. “I went back to Spielberg so I could capture more of the adventure, rather than the psychological, which was tough for kids to wrap their heads around because for kids the experience is more external.”
Snake Night, the third novel in the Midnight Movie Adventures series, centers around an Indiana Jones-like professor who leads kids on an adventure involving mythical snakes and secret societies.
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With the newest book releasing on November 4, Marcks will embark on a book tour visiting schools and talking with students about his novel and the series at large. Marcks is excited for kids to have the chance to read his conclusion to the Midnight Movie Adventures series, but he’s also looking forward to whatever’s next.
“I would feel bad complaining about this opportunity,” Marcks explains. “I got this opportunity, and I managed to get three book deals out of it. Looking back, I’m super proud of that.
“Now, I’m pitching some more kids’ stuff, and they really want me to soften it. I just don’t know if I have that in me. I've had that challenge three times now, and I’ve just hit a wall where I want to go back to making weird shit because I feel like that part of me is dying.”
Marcks is heading back to square one with his editor-turned-agent, Andrea Colvin, and he’s rethinking his approach in an attempt to find a happy medium.
“I just did a pitch today for a mystery project that’s geared towards an even younger audience,” Marcks concludes. “Then, I also just did this weird, experimental comic project for a friend’s record label. It’s just about finding the right balance.”
For more info on Ira Marcks and the Midnight Movie Adventures series, visit his website iramarcks.com or follow him on Instagram @iramarcks.
