At a convention in the late 1980s, Grell stated that his idea for Sable was heavily influenced by Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as well as drawing on pulp fiction crime stories saying "something like a cross between James Bond and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer."[citation needed] Also, many of the stories of Sable's hunting exploits in Africa were influenced by Peter Hathaway Capstick's novels.[citation needed] A new series, Jon Sable: Ashes of Eden, began publication as an online series in November 2007, and was published as a 5-issue mini-series beginning in 2009 and ending in 2010.