The ABC Family Channel has picked up the cast option to The Middleman, a lighthearted series about a struggling artist who is recruited by a square-jawed secret agent/superhero to do battle against an array of comic book-type villains.  The Middleman is based on a comic book/graphic novel series created by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, drawn by Les Mcclaine, and published by Viper Comics.  Last October ABC Family order a pilot episode (see 'The Middleman Pilot Ordered'), and the network has decided to pick up the cast option, which means that as soon as the writers' strike is over, production on the series can begin.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach has plenty of experience writing for television, which certainly informed his writing on The Middleman and made it a natural for TV.  He was a writer and producer on the first two seasons of Lost and has also written for Charmed and Law and Order.  In addition to The Middleman for Viper, JGM has also written the Super Skrull mini-series and the event, Annihilation for Marvel.  So far Viper Comics has published three graphic novel collections of The Middleman and the first volume in the series was selected by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) division of the American Library Association as one of its 'Great Graphic Novels for Teens for 2007' (see 'YALSA 2007 Great Graphic Novels').