Monday, June 13, 2011, 09:00 pm

Steve Jobs comic book biography coming in August

By Josh Ong

A comic book biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is headed to stores in August.

Entitled "Steve Jobs: Co-Founder of Apple" and published by Bluewater Productions, the comic book will be the latest in a series of profiles on contemporary figures, which include Lady Gaga, Sarah Palin and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, The Associated Press reports.

"[Jobs'] innovations command front page news, speculation of his health affects the stock market. Not bad for a college dropout," Bluewater President Darren Davis said. "His story, and that of Apple, is epic."

The 32-page book, written by C.W. Cooke and drawn by Chris Schmidt, will be sold at comic book shops, bookstores and online retailers beginning August 24.

"Admire him or hate him, Jobs' vision and business acumen revolutionized the world," said Cooke. Between Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, "you would be hard pressed to find someone with greater influence over how we communicate, interact and do business over the last 30 years."

According to Bluewater, the decision to profile Jobs came after the Zuckerberg comic sold out. "There are definitely some similarities between Zuckerberg and Jobs. It takes a certain kind of drive and a certain kind of genius to move society the way they have," Cooke said. "The idea behind both efforts is to show the person behind the personality and that it is never what you'd expect."


Meanwhile, an authorized long-form biography of Jobs, written by former Time executive Walter Isaacson, is scheduled to arrive in early 2012. Last week, Amazon and the iBookstore began taking pre-orders for the book, entitled "iSteve: The Book of Jobs," with a tentative March 6, 2012 release date.

Isaacson's work will be the first biography to gain Jobs' cooperation and will include "three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews" with Jobs, family members, colleagues and competitors.

Jobs has acted against unauthorized biographies in the past, with Apple removing all titles by one publisher from its retail stores.