Maurice G Kernigan

An author of comic books, who has been popular since the mid 1970s. He's known to be an eccentric, and even when he worked for a major publisher he would only work in his own 'world'. These days he's got enough obsessive fans that his agent can pretty much handle the business side of things and ensure that everything gets done to bring his work to the fans.

There have been several screen adaptations of his work, including the recent movie Tags, a set of low-budget cinematic and straight-to-video releases in the 80s and early 90s, and a kids TV series called Shaaark!. At present, information about these is mostly on the Tags page.

He is supported by a strong fan base; many of which was fostered in the early 90s when he made a habit of hanging around the nascent Internet fan communities (much more than any of his contemporaries), and made a habit of playfully referencing fandom in his works, or even having cameos of some of the people in the community. He also has a tendency to be more critical of his work in discussions where he senses someone doesn't recognise his pseudonym (variously MK, MK2, Insert Name Here, Cornerlord, Mk.6, and finally (once social media became a common thing for artists) Genuine Fake Kernigan Impersonator). The fans who were around at this point in history, interacting with the author before it was common, still affectionately refer to him as "MK", which has started to become a kind of shibboleth of old-school fandom.

Characters

• "The guy with the burned hand" (what Gabby calls him)
  • Dark Lamprey - some kind of alternate version of the character, who makes adapting him for film/TV complex (using either variant would annoy the part of the fanbase who don't see him as the 'real' one)
• Cerberus Shark

Cheese

He seems to have something of an obsession with unique cheeses from around the world. His convention appearances are pretty rare; and always involve him taking part in some kind of interview or panel with a local cheeseboard in front of him. It's rumoured to be a condition of him agreeing to go somewhere; and rumour has it that he will refuse any con by default unless they can convince his agent that he will be pleasantly surprised by the unique and exceptional cheeses on offer.

At the time of My Cousin's Keeper, he is staying in a penthouse suite at the prestigious Birmingham Grand Hotel paid for by Claughton Innovative while he works on a storyline provisionally titled Crap Shoot. This will not be a sequel to Tags, but those who know about it (very few) believe it will be somehow connected. He intends to schedule the serialised version of this story so that the movie will be released in the middle of it. This is an unusual acceptance of corporate control for him – and he only agreed because the company has put a lot of care into getting him a weekly delivery of unique cheeses from all around the world, as well as supplying room service with an ever-changing roster of world coffee beans.