Steve Mandich, 44, was first published at age ten when his Darth Vader illustration appeared in The Art of Star Wars (Ballantine, 1979); his literary career began amid the fanzine explosion of the 1990s.
Within the photocopied pages of his self-published zine Heinous, Steve examined such pop-culture anomalies as the enigmatic Human Fly, the defunct Seattle Pilots baseball team, the fundamentalist comics of Jack Chick, the deadpan legend Bob Newhart, and monorails. Heinous was a surprise hit, called a "wickedly enjoyable read" by Utne Reader, and garnering a rave "Editor's Choice" review in the authoritative zine periodical Factsheet Five. Select articles were chosen by Playboy Advisor Chip Rowe for the anthology The Book of Zines (Owl/Henry Holt, 1997); Rowe interviewed Steve here.
Most notably, Heinous gained praise for its extensive coverage of motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, which Steve expanded into Evel Incarnate:The Life and Legend of Evel Knievel (Macmillan, 2000). The definitive biography of the 1970s icon was adapted into a film biography for Turner Network Television in 2004. In 2005 he was credited as a "Daredevil Consultant/Historian" for the History Channel documentary Absolute Evel: The Evel Knievel Story, and in 2006 he was interviewed on the CMT program True Grit: Evel Knievel. Upon Knievel's passing in 2007, he wrote an obituary for Slate.com.
Steve's work has also appeared in various other fanzines, newspapers, and blogs, and in such books as Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth (Feral House, 2001). Most recently, the Seattle native wrote about 42 of his favorite spots to eat, drink, shop and have fun in the guide map Seattle: Rain or Shine (Herb Lester, 2013). He continues freelance writing and maintaining his various blogs (here, here, here, and here) while pondering his next book project.
Steve lives with his wife, photographer Eliza Truitt, and their two daughters.
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