SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/19/08 -- Ivory Madison is the only CEO in America who moonlights as a comic book writer. Part one of Madison's debut comic book miniseries/graphic novel, "Huntress: Year One," published by DC Comics, hits stores this week. It features Batman, Catwoman, Batgirl, and tells the origin story of a strong female superhero, the Huntress.

Madison is the founder and CEO of San Francisco-based internet startup redroom.com. The site launched four months ago in beta and has raised $1.8 million in investment capital. The investor community includes Craig Newmark of Craigslist; celebrity chef Thomas Keller; Chronicle Books owner Nion McEvoy; and several founders and directors of Wall Street investment banks and private equity funds, including Gruber & McBaine Capital Management founder Jon D. Gruber (sometimes called the "father of technology investing").

Madison dropped out of school at age thirteen, which places her in the company of CEOs and founders including Sir Richard Branson (who dropped out at age sixteen); college dropouts Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Ralph Lauren, and Mark Zuckerberg; and graduate school dropouts Larry Page and Sergey Brin (both "on leave" from Stanford's Ph.D. program, and neither having completed a comic book).

After many years as a serial entrepreneur, she eventually attended law school (without finishing high school or attending college), where she was Editor-in-Chief of her law review, and interned at the California Supreme Court. A former management consultant to startups and the Fortune 500, she has finally combined her love of writing with her business acumen.

While a lifelong dream to write about Batman may be irrelevant to most job descriptions, Madison's longtime involvement in the literary scene and not-so-hidden identity as a comic book writer are part of what differentiates Red Room from other web startups. Red Room is a social networking site created by a writer for other writers -- much like MySpace was co-created by a musician and thrived to a large extent because it worked so well for other musicians.

"With the Huntress, I'm writing an archetype for girls to see that you can overcome a tough childhood to become a strong woman and maybe even a hero," said Madison. "I never got over not being a superhero, and writing one is probably as close as I'm going to get." Madison also wrote in an essay for redroom.com that, growing up, she had even planned out her secret identity as a "captain of industry and noted philanthropist." She said, "Now, if I achieve just that, I'll be happy."

For more information about Ivory Madison and Red Room, visit www.redroom.com and www.ivorymadison.com.

ABOUT THE RED ROOM -- Red Room is the online home of many of the world's greatest writers and the only social network to feature celebrity authors including Khaled Hosseini, Dr. Maya Angelou, Salman Rushdie, Amy Tan, Candace Bushnell, Tobias Wolff, Alice Hoffman, and James Patterson. Dubbed "a literary MySpace" by the San Francisco Chronicle and covered by Vanity Fair and USA Today's Technology Live blog, Red Room provides authors and members with free, easy-to-use, elegant online homes. It's a place where the literary community can promote their work, express themselves, and connect with their favorite authors. By showcasing writers, redroom.com fosters community between authors and readers, and inspires the next generation. Red Room also gives a percentage of profits to its authors' favorite causes. See redroom.com.

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