Interview: RON HILL

Today, I chat with artist Ron Hill, who is also one of the architects behind the revival of DocCon, which will be a part of Pulpfest later this week.

Ron Hill has been an editorial cartoonist, humorous illustrator, graphic designer, educator, author, armchair theologian, and video documentarian (not all at the same time, of course!) for over 40 years. Born in Cleveland, he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and immediately returned to Northeast Ohio to begin working in advertising.

In the 1980s–90s, as part of the illustration team of Lombardo & Hill, Ron drew countless interior illustrations for role-playing games published by TSR, West End Games, Iron Crown Enterprises, and Chaosium, many licensed from The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. An accomplished quick-sketch caricature artist, he has drawn (to date) probably a quarter-million faces at thousands of private and public events from Chicago to New York. His editorial cartoons have appeared in the Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier, and West Life since 1999. In 2000, he started illustrating the popular “Armchair Theologian” book series for Westminster John-Knox; these 15 volumes have been translated into German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Italian.

From 2002–2015, he taught an Interactive Media College Tech Prep program at Alliance High School and has always conducted workshops at area art centers (including the Valley Art Center) since 1990. After co-founding Act 3 in 2016, a media company and indie book publisher in Cleveland, he has recently embarked (once again) on his solo career as a freelance artist, and has completed two personal documentary projects,

“Go-Kart Therapy” and “We Are Doc Savage: A Documentary on Fandom.” He has always lived in the Chagrin Valley of Northeast Ohio, and you can learn more at www.RonHillArtist.com.

Hi, Ron. Thanks for taking some time to chat!

You bet, Anthony!

Last year at Pulpfest (2024), you premiered your short documentary We Are Doc Savage, which is all about the influence this classic character has had since his debut in the pulp magazine that bore his name, in 1933. What is it about Doc Savage that first caught your interest, and what effect did that have on you?

The covers, hands down! In May of 1975, I was a geeky sci-fi kid, in seventh grade when I first saw a Doc Savage book. I was on an overnight school trip, and we stopped at a mall for lunch. I went to a bookstore and saw #74, The Derrick Devil, with Fred Pfeiffer’s funky artwork. That logo and the illustration and the back cover intrigued me – but I didn’t buy it! Instead, I went with a safer buy: James Blish’s Start Trek 9 and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. But when I got home, there was a package of Bantam Books (I would order from the ads in the back pages with my lawn-mowing dough) and inside was a Bantam catalog. Inside was that awesome logo and the available books. I immediately ordered the first four books, and when they arrived a few weeks later, I was hooked. I think I read all four in one week. And the Man of Bronze was the movie edition, which is another story!

Can you talk about the history of the documentary project, its genesis and road to completion?

Hah! That’s a long and winding road. After art school, the first act of my professional career was working in advertising as an art director, illustrator, and graphic designer, and I also did caricatures and cartoons on the side, for ten years. When I turned 31, I quit the day job and went freelance, mostly doing caricature gigs and drawing for RPG publishers with a friend. We did dozens of books for D&D, West End Games, Chaosium and Iron Crown Enterprises. I was also trying to sell comic strip concepts to the newspaper syndicates; that was act two for me. Then at 40 I fell into a position as a high school career and technical Interactive Media teacher, while freelancing editorial cartoons, illustrating theology books and still doing caricature entertainment summers and weekends; I suppose this was my third work act. Anyway, since I like to do something new every decade or so, after 13 years I quit teaching and helped start a media company with an old friend (the RPG illustrator) and new friend: Act 3, LLC. Act 3 was formed in 2016, and we did websites, illustration, and video production. That is where I learned about video editing. We created lots of short films for non-profits, helping them tell their story. Well, we always wanted to do a documentary, something for ourselves. So, in December of 2021, I pitched the idea of “We Are Doc Savage: A Documentary on Fandom.” My partners greenlit the project in January. I was always a
Doc Savage fan. When the internet exploded in the 90s, I got to know the Doc Savage works of WWW fans Chuck Welch, Frozencat, Chris Kalb, Scott Cranford, Win Scott Eckert, Rick Lai, Will Murray… and contribute artwork, articles, and research of my own. But I never made time to go to the conventions. I would get the invites to the Doc Cons and say to my wife, “If only I didn’t have bills, or school, or work…” So I never dove into the con scene. But I had just turned 60 and suddenly wanted to see what it was all about. And why not document it? So I went to my first convention in spring of 2022, which was Windy City. That was going to be the test to see what kind of footage and assets we could gather. Well, by the end of 2022, Act 3 was doing OK, but not great, you know? The Pandemic really slowed us down. Again, I was 60, and not really that excited about the business side of owning a business, so I removed myself from my own company and went freelance again. My partners are all still my best friends. Part of my separation agreement was that I could take all the footage and documentary assets and finish it on my own. I bought a new computer system at home and spent the next almost two years finishing it.

Was there anything that surprised you as you compiled interviews and pulled the documentary into its final form?

I think the biggest thing that surprised me was that everybody in Doc Savage fandom is so nice, and generous and giving of themselves to each other —Doc fans really do take the Doc Savage Code to heart.

This year sees the return of DocCon, as one of several conventions that are hosted by Pulpfest. How did the return of this venerable fan gathering come about?

Jen DiGiacomo, who I got to know from two previous PulpFests and was a real cheerleader for the documentary project, said last year at PulpFest she was starting Doc Con again for 2025 PulpFest, and did I want to be on her committee? I said sure, I could certainly help with design. Jen is a powerhouse of energy and passion when she takes something on, and it is really infectious; I didn’t want to let her down. It’s too bad she ran into a conflict with her one-woman show when it got accepted overseas, so she won’t be here – this year! We will be talking about 2026 plans real soon. So, after never attending a Doc Con, I find myself right in the thick of things, with super-generous fans, like yourself. And I am told that of the three Mini-Cons at PulpFest, this year Doc Con has generated the most interest, according to a survey of PulpFest members responding. That is gratifying and a little scary – we want this Min-Con to be special!

What can anyone attending Pulpfest expect in terms of DocCon programming?

Mike Chomko was very enthusiastic from the start. When Jen told him she wanted to do this, he said yes, and she pretty much had the programming ideas – of course, the 50th anniversary of the George Pal’s “Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze” was a perfect theme to explore. Jen had recently acquired various ephemera from the movie production, and Chris Kalb had some other stuff, so one panel will cover that. And the Bantam Revival panel was Jen and Will’s idea, and I was happy to help flesh that out since that was my passion for 50 years – Bantam and illustration. I am really looking forward to sharing the stage with Will and Chris as moderator.

Let’s talk about your other creative endeavors for a moment. You recently provided the amazing cover art for Jack of All Comics! edited by Jim Beard and published by Becky Books (in which, full disclosure for readers, I have an essay). What was the process of creating that cover?

That was pretty much a straight illustration commission. Jim Beard is so much fun to work with. He hired me two years ago to do a cover of one of his Grown-Up Kids Remember books, about Start Trek TOS. So when he said he wanted to emulate the first issue of Fantastic Four, I saw the image in my mind’s eye immediately. Presto- bango and it’s done, Jim is happy. That’s always cool when that works out.

Does your process change at all from project to project? What is your favorite artistic medium to work in?

My favorite medium is pencil and ink. Old-school. But I do all my editorial cartoons on my iPad Pro. It is still drawing with the Apple Pencil. I even “pencil” the cartoons in a blue layer, and then “ink” over it in another layer. Then below that I do a “watercolor” layer. It is easier to edit, and when it’s done you don’t have to scan it. Of course there are no originals, but as many as I do, at least I save on art materials – pixels are free.

You’re also a caricaturist. How did your interest in that develop, and what’s your process like when doing caricatures at events?

I did not go to college. I did go to night school when I was 40, to get my Ohio Career- Tech teaching certificate, but I only have an associate’s degree from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 1980, AIP was a tech school, just commercial art skills. No math, science, humanities, whatever… build a portfolio and hit the streets as a commercial artist. Well, I took a 3-hour extracurricular class in caricature quick-sketch from an amazing artist named John Johns. He taught that a caricature is simply an “exaggerated likeness.” At the end of the afternoon, he engaged a dozen of us to draw at the Three Rivers Art Festival. That was a ten-day festival. We drew ten hours a day producing caricatures at

$2 a pop. It was so fun and immediate. In those ten days, I lived it up at night, six-packs and steak from the corner store, up the next morning and at it again. I earned enough to pay for the last quarter of school, my supplies for that last quarter, and an engagement ring! True story: a week after that first festival, when I was home for a couple weeks that summer, I said to my then-girlfriend, Margie, let’s go to the mall. And I bought a $1000 engagement diamond ring with crumpled up dollar bills. How cool is that? I thought to

myself this is how it feels to be a rock star on the road. Some musicians like studio work, some like being on the road. To me, one feeds the other. I go to a wedding and come home with $800 after drawing for a few hours, and everyone is happy. A couple gigs a weekend, adding up to 60 gigs a year means I can afford to work at home during the week, finding illustration his, creating editorial cartoons, illustrating books… and producing documentaries, hah ha. So ever since 1982, I kept doing caricatures at all kinds of events, eventually being able to go freelance because of my gig work. Almost 45 years later I still get that rush drawing for people. My process? After so many years and thousands of gigs and maybe a quarter million faces, it’s really all muscle memory at this stage. I mean, I see faces and immediately know how I would exaggerate those features, and how much. Oh, and Margie and I will celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary this October. So yeah, caricatures have been very, very good to me.

Do you have any other projects coming up that you’d like people to know about?

Not really. I just kind of grab what comes along and looks interesting. Something always comes along. I don’t think I would do another documentary unless I get a chance to do one about the history of comic strips in Cleveland. I just hope to keep drawing for another 25 years or so… and I hope that includes more cool pulp illustration projects!

Thanks again, Ron! See you in a few days at Pulpfest!

You’re welcome, Anthony! Can’t wait to see you.

Readers, it is not too late to register for and attend Pulpfest 2025 (THE pulp magazine-focused convention in the Northeast) and the other three conventions it hosts: FarmerCon (dedicated to the works of Philip Jose Farmer), ERBFest (dedicated to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs) and DocCon (dedicated to all things Doc Savage related). Check out the Pulpfest website for registration and hotel information!

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.