Interview: JIM BEARD

I have my first new publishing credit in quite a few years in Jack of All Comics!, an anthology of essays about Jack “King” Kirby’s work for both Marvel and DC Comics in the 1960s-70s. My essay is about Kirby’s work on the woefully short-lived DC ‘70s series The Sandman. Rather than just blog about having a new book out, I thought I’d chat with the book’s editor/publisher Jim Beard about how it all came together.

IMAGE: Jack Kirby’s head and arms bursting out of an art table, from which an ink bottle is falling. He’s holding a paint brush in one hand, a lead pencil in the other, and the flame from his cigar looks like the Human Torch. He is surrounded by art pages. Cover art by Ron Hill.

First, a little about Jim:

Jim Beard is a writer, editor, and publisher of adventure fiction and pop-culture non-fiction. He is the co-founder of Flinch Books and the founder of Becky Books (which published Jack of All Comics!). His licensed works include Star Wars and Ghostbusters comics, a Spider-Man novel, and Green Hornet and Kolchak the Night-Stalker novellas. Jim’s original fiction creations include the Edwardian ghost-hunter Sgt. Janus and the 1970s globetrotters D.C. Jones and Adventure Command International. He lives in Northwest Ohio with absolutely no pets whatsoever.

Hi Jim! First of all, thank you for inviting me to be a part of Jack of All Comics!. It's both a pleasure and an honor to be a part of not just a book about Jack Kirby, but also a book in a really wonderful series of books on "Comic Book Culture." Can you talk first a little bit about the inspiration for the series?

Pleasure’s all mine. Always a good feeling to give a struggling young writer a chance at the big time 😉

“Comic Book Culture” is inspired by my own comic interests primarily, but also by the drive to inspire readers to pick up each volume. That means going places they might not expect, while at the same time appealing to their own interests and passions within the medium.

What inspired you to make this latest volume about Jack Kirby, and in particular his 1960s-1970s work at both DC and Marvel?

A Jack Kirby book needs no other inspiration beyond “Jack Kirby.” The length, width, and breadth of the King’s work is banquet enough for a thousand-thousand books, and I had always wanted to add my own to that stack. The key, as with all my non-fiction books, was to “do it my way,” i.e. come up with something that hasn’t already been said and done a million times over—and with Jack, that ain’t exactly easy, given that’s he’s arguably the most discussed comic book creator ever.

Part of that encompasses just what you say: the parameters of 1961-1978. It always helps me to set a framework down to fill up with thoughts about whatever subject I’m addressing, and the three eras of Jack’s work during that timespan worked perfectly for what I wanted to do, which was have a different writer talk about each one of the series Jack worked on at Marvel and DC during those years.

When putting together a book of essays like this, how do you as an editor decide which writers get which assignments?

Sometimes it’s the easiest thing in the world. Writers say, “Ooh! I want THAT!” and you know you’re gonna get magic. Other times, it’s the most challenging thing because you always have the essays no one really wants to write…but I’ve been lucky because when I’ve thrown down a gauntlet to a writer to challenge themselves on one of those topics, they always find they’re the right person for the job. And then you still get magic.

In particular with this book, was there anyone you immediately thought, “That person HAS to write about THIS series”? Conversely, was there anyone whose interest in writing about a particular series took you by surprise?

A few. Cliff Biggers had to write about Fantastic Four. Van Allen Plexico had to write about The Avengers. That said, many of the other topics just fell into place and in the end, nearly everybody got their first choices. This book in particular was so great in that way for me. It was almost an editor’s dream. The excitement was high across the board.

I surprised myself by being the exact right guy to talk about First Issue Special 😉

Your own essay in the book is about Kirby’s issues of DC’s First Issue Special series, and I won’t spoil here which of his FIS issues was your favorite. But what enquiring minds really want to know is: what is YOUR favorite Kirby series of all time, and why?

Hate to be so mundane, but it has to be the obvious choice: Fantastic Four. Stan and Jack just rocked it out on that one, and over a huge amount of time and issues. It still stands as one of the greatest achievements of a creative duo in comic books to this day. And there’s two reasons why: Stan and Jack. Say what you will, and many of you have, but that was some kind of perfection going on there.

Finally (for now, at least), is there anything upcoming from either Becky Books or Flinch! Books (which you co-run with John C. Bruening) that you’d like people to know about?

It’s Flinch Books’ tenth anniversary this year and we’re releasing the fourth volumes in our signature series, me with Sgt. Janus and John with The Midnight Guardian. Frankly, I’m more excited to return to Union City than Mount Airy….

Both settings, and both characters, are great, in this interviewer’s not-so-humble opinion! I’m looking forward to chatting with you more about Sgt. Janus in August, and with John when the new Midnight Guardian book bows in the fall. Meantime, Thanks again Jim!

Series Saturday: DC's FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.



As much as the size of my comic book collection has fluctuated over the decades, there are certain series that I have just never been able to part with. It is nostalgia and sentimental value that drives these decisions rather than monetary – anyone who has seen my collection knows that I’m all about readability and favorite characters and not about getting the most value. I can’t imagine the day will come that will see me purchasing a “slabbed-and-graded” copy of any comic book. All of this is why there are what some would consider to be real “quirky gems” in my boxes.

And one of those quirky gems is the 1975-1976 DC series called First Issue Special. The idea, as explained by series editor Gerry Conway in the recently-released hardcover reprint volume, came from DC publisher Carmine Infantino: since new first issues sell better than anything else, why not a series that was all first issues, and anything that really caught readership attention would get spun off into an on-going title? I won’t reiterate the logistic issues Conway explains in his hardcover Introduction. I will say that the concept made for one of the most eclectic mixes of characters and creators one is likely to find under a single title.

The idea of “try-out” titles was nothing new by the mid-70s. DC’s Showcase title, defunct by this point but due to be revived in 1977 for a short run, was the book that launched the Silver Age with try-out revivals of The Flash, Green Lantern, and others. The Justice League and the Teen Titans got their try-out in the pages of The Brave & The Bold. Over at Marvel, try-out series included Marvel Premiere (which launched Iron Fist, Warlock, and a Doctor Strange revival, as well as an Alice Cooper issue), Marvel Spotlight ( which gave us Werewolf By Night, Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, and Spider-Woman), and Marvel Feature (which introduced The Defenders, and launched Red Sonja as well as the Thing’s team-up title, Marvel Two-in-One). What set First Issue Special apart was that no character or concept was given more than one issue to prove itself, because featuring a character in more than one issue would contradict the idea that every issue was a “first” issue.

The line-up of creators alone is impressive: three issues written and drawn by Jack Kirby, two written by Joe Simon, work by Marty Pasko, Walt Simonson, Steve Ditko, Mike Grell, Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon and Conway himself. Not all of these folks were necessarily at the top of their games here, but that was probably as much from the rushed production schedule as anything. According to Conway’s introduction, it sounds like concepts were picked as much because they could be executed quickly as because they might be any good.

The characters were a mix of previously-established properties like Doctor Fate, the Creeper, the New Gods, Manhunter, and Metamorpho and new concepts. The newly-introduced concepts ran the gamut from solo super-heroes and teams (Codename: Assassin and The Outsiders) to boy gangs (The Green Team and The Dingbats of Danger Street) to fantasy (Atlas), pulp-adventure (The Warlord), gritty crime drama (Lady Cop) and science fiction (a new version of Starman).

Of the three Kirby issues, his revamp of classic Gold Age character The Manhunter probably holds up the best, a “passing of the mantle” type story that I think gets unjustly overshadowed by the Archie Goodwin-Walt Simonson Manhunter revamp that debuted in Detective Comics around this same time. The Goodwin/Simonson was more spy thriller than super-hero, while this Kirby issue features classic Kirby throwbacks to Golden Age over-the-top-ness (the villain in the first half of the story has a Hall of Talking Heads to taunt the hero!), and there’s really no reason both could not have been successful. The Kirby Manhunter, Mark Shaw, did eventually show up in issues of Justice League written by Steve Englehart. The Kirby issue that intrigued young me the most, though, was the very first First issue Special: Atlas. It always amazed me how Kirby managed to make even “high fantasy” concepts looks science-fictional, and that’s totally true here. Young me loved Greek mythology, and didn’t seem to mind (and still doesn’t) that this version of Atlas is nothing at all like his Titan namesake. Sadly, the character didn’t catch enough interest, although he’d be used later and to lesser effect in Superman stories written by James Robinson.

It’s also of interest that both Jack Kirby and Joe Simon took First Issue Special as a chance to return to their heyday as creators of “boy gang” characters (see The Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandoes, and Boys’ Ranch). Kirby introduced The Dingbats of Danger Street (which apparently had been given the go-ahead as an on-going but then was yanked from the schedule with only the first of three completed issues seeing print here) while Joe Simon wrote (with art by Jerry Grandenetti) The Green Team. Talk about taking concepts in complete opposite directions! Kirby’s Dingbats are street-level kids fighting costumed supervillains, while Simon’s group are all young millionaires whose biggest concern is a crowd trying to shut down a project they’ve backed (also, awkwardly, the token black kid only becomes a millionaire by accident while the others are born into – and their privilege shows. Even in the 70s, this was obvious to me and made the Green Team my least favorite issue of the run). The Dingbats eventually showed up in some Superman stories and the Green Team in work by Grant Morrison in the 2000s.

Other than Atlas, my two favorite “new concept” issues were The Warlord and Starman. The Warlord was Mike Grell’s take on the classic pulp-adventure “hollow Earth” concept, following in the footsteps of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne but putting his own distinct spin on it. Warlord is the one First Issue Special character to successfully spin out into a long-running series, but moreso because it was planned that way from the beginning rather than from immediate reader response. Regardless, I loved everything about the character, the world of Skartaris, and the series that followed. Grell has also always been one of my favorite artists and he’s at the top of his game in this issue. The science-fictional Starman, about a lone alien rebel looking to protect Earth from invasion by his own warrior society, had lots of promise that never got the chance to shine. I’d like to think if the character had had a multi-issue tryout in Showcase a few years later he might have taken off (although then much of what James Robinson eventually did with the character in his own Starman revival decades later might have been vastly different).

At the time of publication, I can’t say that the Lady Cop, Codename: Assassin, or The Outsiders issues made any strong impressions on me. Rereading them now, the first two are pretty solid character introductions with potential. I can see the appeal to some of The Outsiders as an ersatz Doom Patrol, with the main characters even less “passing-for-human” that Robotman and Negative Man, but to me the story seems to be trying too hard.

Of the previously-established characters given berths in First Issue Special, the return to Metamorpho by Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon is probably the most fun, a ridiculous non-stop romp through Washington DC’s landmarks to stop a vengeful ghost. Some of Haney’s dialogue is over-the-top, especially for lovesick goon Java, but Fradon’s art is spot-on. The Creeper story attempts to establish a new norm for the hero. It’s a good enough story, making use of a little-remembered (at the time) Batman villain, but I think it loses something by not having original creator Steve Ditko write as well as draw the story. The “Return of the New Gods” (also the series’ final issue) is pretty much one long fight scene and feels a bit rushed story-wise (trying to do too much to establish that these are the classic Kirby characters but also different) and art-wise (Mike Vosburg’s pencils feel much more dynamic in the Starman story the preceding issue), almost like the creators were pushed to hit a deadline.

The stand-out among these previously-established characters is clearly the Marty Pasko-scripted, Water Simonson-drawn Doctor Fate issue: a great story that builds on Fate’s history and lays the groundwork for later Doctor Fate solo features. I really wish this one had gone to series.

First Issue Special may have varied in quality across its short run, but conceptually it was more hit than miss for this reader, and I’m glad I still own all of the original issues as well as the new hardcover reprint. Now if DC would just get on the ball and give us hardcover or trade paperback collections of the one on-going series that successfully spun out of First Issue Special, Mike Grell’s The Warlord, I’d be really happy.