pop culture blogger — BLOG — ANTHONY R. CARDNO

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!

The following is my first Guest Post, by my good friend Jason O’Donnell.

Image credit: Some rights reserved by Ford Buchanan

Following is the start of a conversation between me and my dear friend and published author, Mr. Anthony Cardno. I encourage you all to read through my comments to Anthony below and jump in the conversation with your own suggestions, insights, and experiences. This is, of course, a discussion, not the end all be all of twitter etiquette.

Anthony pondered on Twitter: “Wondering what I’m doing wrong that even when I ask for a RT, very few of them happen. Am I missing something RT-etiquette-wise?”

Not surprisingly, I have some very particular ideas about this specific behaviour (based on my experiences working in social business) and quickly replied with the following:

Jason to @talekyn Yes. Don’t ask. If your content is compelling, RTs will happen. Asking is seen as intrusive.
Anthony to @acdntlpoet Makes sense. And you know I very rarely ask. Which means apparently most of what I tweet is not compelling.
Jason to @talekyn kind of. Also depends on your audience, reach, etc… We can take this to a much more in-depth conversation

Obviously, that’s no where near the end of the discussion. Simply said, there is no single answer to this question. People are making their living as consultants telling you how to to do just this. Not one of them has the right answer in a an easy to distribute formula; because the answer isn’t really formulaic.
As I noted above in my initial reply, the key to seeing your content re-shared is to put forward compelling contents. Oh, but if only the answer were so easy! While I can tell you at a high level what will get your content shared out, it all falls apart in the details and subtleties and actual implementation/ practical application; because not all content is created equal.

But let me step back for a moment and address etiquette before moving on into some best practices: Asking via Twitter for others to retweet you is seen as bad manners, neediness, and laziness. More to the point, it is a bit more indicative of immaturity in the space, or evidence of the size of your network (add totally inappropriate size queen joke at will). By immaturity in the space, I mean that coming from an individual I will see these requests in the same light as I see forwarded emails asking me to “keep the chain going”, or Facebook status updates asking to “post this to your status if you agree / just for one hour”, etc. From a corporate account, it just comes off as poor marketing strategy.

Exposing the size of your network isn’t really a big deal in and of itself (I can see your numbers in any space I play). Rather, asking for RTs presents the impression of a smaller and/or less engaged network, minimal confidence in your message, and generally short selling yourself. Now, I am not saying that asking for a RT is going to leave people with the impression that you are just a speck in the world, but I AM saying that it is one small action which builds how people perceive you when combined with other small actions and methods of presenting yourself.

Yes, I am talking from a more marketing centric approach, with a few assumptions in terms of how you use social media to connect with your audience and spread your message. The assumption is that you are a different type of user, one who is building a personal brand and using social avenues to build up your name and digital eminence. Obviously, if you are just using social media to stay in contact with friends and family, then the concern over perception won’t really apply. But, perception is big for driving and motivating others to share your content.

Rather than continuing to focus on the negatives of asking for RTs, let’s rather focus on what you CAN do to get people to share your content. There’s a great presentation here (http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/ ) on the psychology of sharing. From this presentation we can see that one of the biggest factors is determining how the information we are sharing will be useful to the recipient. Take this the next step and you can translate this into your own content by providing that clarity to the person you’re sharing with, so they can in turn re-share easily.

Let me take an example:
@talekyn: Two medical causes are important to me: Cancer and Juvenile Diabetes. Read my diabetes interview with 9yo Frank John:anthonycardno.com/?p=276
Good content here, and likely worthy of a retweet, but I have two problems:
1. It is passive… ok, so these are important to you. They are indeed important issues, but I am not compelled to RT immediately because there isn’t a real message here.
2. I have to click and read to determine if I want to RT. That is going to take some time, and I may lose the originating tweet before I am done with the interview.

Presuming the interview is compelling enough for me to want to RT it, I now need to go back to find the tweet to pass it on (or, one better, tweet/retweet from within the blog post itself). Most people won’t go back to twitter to retweet unless the content is REALLY moving. A well composed tweet that will compel a stranger to read your content will also be compelling enough to garner retweets with out specifically asking for them. Compelling content which resonates with others to the point where they want to share with their own network is what you’re looking for here; adding social sharing buttons in your blog will also help enable users to easily share out your content to the spaces and networks where they play.

Let me see if I can “re-swizzle” (yep, I said it) your tweet above to something which I may be compelled to click into and retweet:
@talekyn: How Frank John, a 9yo living with Juvenile Diabetes and fund raising for JDRF, is putting me to shame: anthonycardno.com/?p=276

Forgive the forced self deprecation, but I think this will work in your favour here: I switched it up a bit, made the reader curious as to what a 9 year old is doing better than you. Because if they can do it better than you, they can do it better than me too, so now I am intrigued and want to read more. It is a more active voice, but not demanding; compelling me to look further. Plus, the tweet provides me with the key points before reading more into the blog: this 9 year old is doing good work for diabetes awareness/cure. I am both compelled to read AND pass it on now, because there is a story here beyond the normal “please send money” charity call. It is interesting, much like your earlier tweet:

@talekyn #LifeWouldBeBetter if my 9 year old cousin didn’t have Juvenile Diabetes. Meet him on my site: anthonycardno.com/?p=276
The tweet above also has that hook, but unfortunately Tweeting this out at 11:30pmEDT on a Friday night means very few people in your particular audience will be seeing it, and you need visibility in order to glean retweets. So, now that you have the compelling content, let’s look at targeting the right audience…

Who are your followers? Are they cast amongst disparate time zones, or predominantly in one? What ages? Nine-to-fivers or in school? By example, I am at my computer from8amEDT until8pmEDT M-F, because of that, I am more likely to retweet something posted in that time frame than I am other times since my usage of twitter is heaviest during work. Weekends and other times when I am outside the house, I’m far more likely to miss content because I tend to turn off most social channels when not at work. Conversely, my fictitious high school aged neighbor may be more likely to see and subsequently retweet late on school nights when s/he is finally back home from school, extracurricular activities, and is “wasting time” on the internet. Not to mention that demographic has a much different usage style of social channels as direct, near-real-time communication and may not be as inclined to retweet blog content outside of some of the more viral types of content.

Having a sense of your follower’s schedules / behaviours / demographics will help guide you towards those ‘sweet spot’ times to post for the greatest impact and visibility. If you use bit.ly or some other URL shortener, or use google analytics on your site (WordPress makes this stuff very easy), you can track some basic metrics and see when when your audience is most active and more likely to marketing out your links. Also, keep promoting your content (with appropriate pauses in between duplication) until you see a drop off in click-throughs. Duplicating content isn’t a bad thing on Twitter as most people don’t see everything unless the spend time going back in their timelines up to the last time they logged in. Unless your users are all like me with a stake in the social business game, they are most likely missing a ton of stuff posted when they aren’t watching. Heck, I even miss stuff, and I am watching like a hawk and make a point to go back in all my timelines to ensure I don’t miss things!

Here ends the first round answer as to why you aren’t seeing a good amount of retweets, even when (or because) you request them. With your following of 490 users on Twitter, I’d predict you’d garner maybe around 10 retweets for some good content if you market it more than once. Until you are a celebrity and people hang on your every word, I’d not expect more than that…. unless of course you happen to stumble on that next bit of viral content and it spins out of your control… but we can only hope for that

Yes, this was a rather lengthy post, and not intended as the end all be all to explaining social behaviours. I am sure many of my own readers have their own ideas and experiences to share, which I fully encourage! Please feel free to comment here, or in any of the other channels which you may have found this post shared out… the key to being social on the internet is, of course, engaging in good discussion! So whether you agree or disagree, please let me know

You can comment on this post (although it may take a while before your comment to show up, since I moderate all comments), or you can go to Jason’s blog and comment there.