"All men can see these tactics by which I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which the victory is evolved."

Sun Tzu wrote those words about 1,500 years ago as part of a general martial philosophy that modern publishers have collected as "The Art of War." As much about winning in general as warring in specific, "The Art of War" has long since conquered the business-book market -- and now, thanks to Corey Blake, it could soon do the same in graphic novels.

Blake is the president of the Round Table Companies, which packages business books as graphic novels for SmarterComics. He serves as writer or editor on most of the books and also turns to veterans such as Cullen Bunn, author of "The Sixth Gun," and children's illustrator Shane Clester.

The first five books are "How to Master the Art of Selling," by Tom Hopkins; "The Long Tail," by Chris Anderson; "Mi Barrio," based on "From the Barrio to the Boardroom," by Robert Renteria; "Overachievement," by John Eliot, and "Shut Up, Stop Whining and Get a Life," by Larry Winget. "The Art of War" will quickly follow, and Blake is already working on titles to be released under his Round Table Comics banner, including Machiavelli's "The Prince," Alesia Shute's "Everything's OK: My Journey Surviving Childhood Cancer" and Marshall Goldsmith's "What Got You Here Won't Get You There."

"Mi Barrio" is the true story of a Hispanic boy who did everything wrong -- drugs, gangs, the works. But after learning self-discipline in the military, Renteria turned it all around and rose to the top of the business world. It reads like fiction, but Blake's adaptation and Clester's illustrations make it real and immediate. And it's just the sort of story Blake loves to tell.

"We said, 'Well, if we do this as a comic book, we can reach more people,' and just have a huger impact in pulling kids out of the barrios and ghettos -- what a great cause," he said. "Wow, that book is powerful."

But even great stories require distribution, and Blake is thinking big. He's already being distributed by National Book Network (chain and independent booksellers, libraries and schools) and Hudson News (airport bookstores). Many of the early releases are available as e-books for a free 90-day trial. Blake also said he's starting to get preorders from traditional comic-book stores.

"We're super-excited to reach that demographic," he said.

Another target audience, Blake says, is "the busy professional who is more pressed for time than ever, [who] wishes they could make the six- to eight-hour commitment to these book [in prose] but just can't do it. ... It's 45 minutes to burn through the majority of these, and what a great vehicle."