Mark Cotta Vaz is an American author, editor and film historian, born on September 16, 1954, in San Francisco, California. He has authored over thirty books, including four New York Times bestsellers. In 1989, he wrote Tales of the Dark Knight Batman's First Fifty Years: 1939–1989, which the Los Angeles Times noted "will delight comics fans."

He has focused on documenting film special effects and other behind-the-scenes aspects of visual presentation. Vaz has written about these aspects for both Star Wars and Star Trek. He has produced a number of movie companion books, such as those for The Spirit, Beautiful Creatures, and four for the Twilight series. Publishers Weekly said about his biography of Merian C. Cooper: The charismatic Cooper, "a man living his own movie," is no longer an obscure, remote figure, thanks to Vaz's exhaustive research and skillful writing.