The Corner Box

Jim McCann's Triumphant Return on The Corner Box - S2Ep41

• David & John • Season 2 • Episode 41

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Writer Jim McCann joins hosts John and David to talk about his journey from writing soap operas to comics, coming up with some of the most memorable marketing slogans in Marvel Comics history, the exciting upcoming launches from Ignition Press, why everyone needs a good editor, and Jim’s brand-new newsletter!

David's First Super-Power Comic is Coming!
Sugar Bomb launches soon!

John is at PugW!
Pug Worldwide

Jim McCann has a newsletter!
jimmccann.beehiiv.com

Timestamp Segments

  • [01:25] Jim’s secret origin story.
  • [11:05] Writing soap operas.
  • [14:13] Going part-time at Marvel.
  • [18:02] Returning to Return of the Dapper Men.
  • [22:28] John really loves an idea.
  • [23:47] The Civil War pitch.
  • [24:45] Jim’s greatest slogans.
  • [27:02] Building comics around slogans.
  • [30:53] Ignition Press putting creators first.
  • [33:22] The importance of good editors.
  • [35:38] What’s next for Jim?
  • [36:24] Ignition’s ComiCon pop-up.
  • [36:49] Jim's new newsletter.

Notable Quotes

  • “Good editors are great. Not all editors are built the same.”
  • “Batman doesn’t sit.”

Books Mentioned

Welcome to The Corner Box, where your hosts, David Hedgecock and John Barber, lean into their decades of comic book industry experience, writing, drawing, editing, and publishing. They'll talk to fellow professionals, deep dive into influential and overlooked works, and analyze the state of the art, and business, of comics and pop culture. Thanks for joining us on The Corner Box.


[00:28] John Barber: Hello, and welcome back to The Corner Box. I'm one host, John Barber, and with me, as always, my good friend,


[00:34] David Hedgecock: David Hedgecock.


[00:35] John: I almost left that part out, and that was always a cue, and that's why we always messed up, but we did it. Boom. Next time, we'll nail it, and I won't even mention it. Of course, we got our introduction right.


[00:43] David: We'll stop making a big deal of the most basic functions.


[00:46] John: Anyway. We're not alone. With us is, I guess, at this point, one of my oldest friends in comics. We've known each other a long time. We worked together back at Marvel. Jim's gone on to do a bunch of other things.


[00:56] Jim McCann: 21 years.


[00:57] John: Goodness. Creator and writer of Return of the Dapper Men, Mind the Gap, current writer at Ignition, and just launched a new newsletter—Mr. Jim McCann.


[01:10] Jim: Thank you for having me. The 10s go wild.


[01:16] John: You're flattering.


[01:17] Jim: I was talking about my 10s of fans.


[01:19] John: That's awesome. If you can bring in 10s of people to this podcast, we'll say you're on every week.


[01:24] Jim: There you go.


[01:25] John: There's a question we always start with, with everybody. So, we might as well just dive right into this part. What's your secret origin story? Where did you come from? I know I met you at Marvel, and you were working in the marketing department, but I also know you did stuff before that.


[01:39] Jim: I went to college for TV film, and minored in English and theater. I won an award for Best Play while I was at Xavier University. Then I went on, and through a series of unusual circumstances, met an actress that was on the ABC Daytime show, One Life to Live, and I was talking to her, and let her know that I was a writer, and she said, “Oh, my God. We need more writers, and better writers.” The show's not on the air anymore. So, I don't think I'm really offending anyone, and it was her opinion—Let me just put that out there. It was her opinion, but I got an introduction to the head of the ABC Daytime Writer Development Program, was accepted into that, which led me to writing episodes of One Life to Live—rest in peace. It's been canceled—and then I was living in Nashville, Tennessee, at the time, and I knew that if I wanted to do this full-time, I'd have to move to New York, and one of my biggest goals in life, or my two biggest goals in life, were to work for Lucasfilm and work for Marvel, because I grew up a massive comic book fan. So, sold in the house, moved into a house that my great grandmother had actually lived in—So, it was the family house—and just as I was running low on the funds from the sale of the house, I got a Monster.com alert that said Marvel was hiring for a traffic coordinator with David Bogart.

So, I applied for that on a Saturday, got a call on Monday to see if I could interview on Tuesday. On my way home, I got the call that said, can I start the next day? And I was like, “this is the fastest I've ever gotten a job,” and also probably the fastest Marvel's ever hired somebody, at the time, but it was because it was just before San Diego ComiCon, and the higher-ups wanted to have somebody in place, because the person whose place I took was going to be leaving at the end of the week. So, they wanted me to get at least two days worth of training with her. So, I did that. My first full day flying solo—because I used to route all of the scripts to everybody, because editors would read other editors’ scripts that would come in—I remember going to the copying machine to pick something up, and the page from, I believe, Astonishing X-Men #4, when Colossus runs through Kitty, was the first piece of art I saw that came in, and Colossus is one of my favorite characters, and I was like, “oh, my god. This is going to be a great time to work here,” and then I got the script for Avengers Disassembled, that Brian Bendis had done, and it was when Hawkeye died, and Hawkeye is my favorite character, and I was like, “this is going to be a terrible time.”

It turned out to be really good. They knew I wanted to write the whole time, and they knew that I could write. So, I ended up doing all of the solicitations for them, and one day, they were doing Marvel Westerns, and I was really on a lot of cold medicine. So, went into Mark Paniccia’s office—This shows you my sports knowledge—I was like, “what if we do something with a character called the Philadelphia Philly?” And I thought it was genius, but fortunately, I went on to pitch it as the one genre that Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy had never done, which was a Western. He was like, “Yeah, go for it. It'll be a […].”

So, I got to write an 8-page story there, and then I did an X-Men Christmas Special that was digital-only. So, I have that somewhere, printed off and bound, in a Staples. It never went to print, as far as I know.


[05:34] John: That's funny. They usually—just out of the general cheapness of Marvel and repurposing stuff—they usually reprint stuff. That's funny.


[05:42] Jim: It was a total dream come true, because I got to write Dazzler for the first time, who I love, and I got to write X-Men, which I love. My first gateway comic into comics were X-Men comics, and I got to write a Holiday Special. I remembered those growing up, reading them, and I love Christmas. So, it was just like, “this is all perfect for me,” and then I would attend the creative retreats—the editorial retreats with all the creators—and this was during Secret Invasion, and just before we were going to come out of that, we wanted a big get.

So, as far as somebody coming back from the dead, that had been replaced by a Skrull long ago, and Mike Pasciullo and I, at the same time, both said Mockingbird, because Hawkeye being one of my favorite characters, I thought, “well, we never really resolved a lot of their story in West Coast Avengers, because she was just cut short,” and I loved the fact that they had a 4-issue meet, fall in love, get married story, and I thought, “why don't we dig in a little bit deeper into their actual story and have her come back from the Skrulls’ homeworld?” Hawkeye, at the time, was Ronin. So, they were both trying to find themselves again, and the only thing they had to hold on to was each other, but through a lot of trauma, they still had trust issues with everybody, including each other.

So, I ended up winning a Prism Award for Best Portrayal of PTSD in a comic with that, which was New Avengers: The Reunion. Oh, I forgot—when I pitched in the creative retreat that Mockingbird should come back, and she and Hawkeye should be the Mr and Mrs Smith of the Marvel Universe, Brian Bendis said, “That's a great idea, and you should write it,” and I was like, “wow.” So, I ended up going part-time at Marvel, and writing at Marvel, because at the time, you could not work and write and get two paychecks. So, all of the writing I had done before that was free—just for the experience—and then when I went part-time, I was able to get paid. So, New Avengers: The Reunion led into Hawkeye & Mockingbird, which led into Widow Maker, and then that led into Hawkeye Blindspot. So, I ended up having a good three-year run with the character, and it's all collected in an epic collection called Hawkeye: The Reunion, which you can get in stores now. I was like, “Wow. 400-and-something pages I wrote of this?”


[08:26] John: I did not realize that all that is in one book now. That's actually cool to know. Okay.


[08:31] Jim: Yeah, you can ask my aunt and my dad. They have it. I did that, and while I was working on that, I left being part-time, I went full-time when Hawkeye & Mockingbird was green-lit.


[08:45] John: You went full-time writing?


[08:46] Jim: I went full-time writing, yes, and left marketing and publicity at Marvel, which was a blast. Got to do lots of fun things, like a Guiding Light/Marvel crossover. The story was stuck in the middle of the Civil War anthology, and that confused people.


[09:06] John: The one I remember that I still try to dine out on—this is one we vaguely collaborated on that was almost all you—I remember you mentioning you would run into on the subway—Tim Gunn—and I was a big Project Runway fan, at the time, and also at the time, just Secrets behind the Comics—Nick Lowe was nearly Christian Siriano's roommate at one point. Did you know that?


[09:28] Jim: That's crazy. I didn't know that.


[09:29] John: It was before Project Runway. He and, I think, Skid, maybe, were in a place together, and they advertised for a roommate, and this guy shows up, and Nick would refer to him as Johnny Lots-of-Chains, because he was wearing lots of chains, and then he turned into Christian Siriano. He walked past me one time, exiting the back door of the Marvel offices, and didn't say, “Hey, you look like a guy that looks like he knows that guy I was nearly roommates with three years ago,” but anyway, all the work was on your side, for sure. I'm not trying to take credit for it, because you actually got a Tim Gunn custom comic made, and there was a signing and everything.


[10:08] Jim: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Tim and I had become friends. He ended up writing the intro to Return of the Dapper Men. I used to go to the signings with him around town. He even cooked lunch for me at his house, which was crazy, and he answered the door in jeans and just a plain t-shirt, and I thought, “I have that outfit. I'm fashionable.”


[10:32] John: At the Midtown signing, I remember him saying this thing that I still think about. He was super nice. I don't know what he's like—obviously, you know him for real, but he was exactly like on TV, except more polite. He had to be on the show. Somebody came by and offered him water, and he says, “I am a self-cleaning oven,” and produces a bottle of water that he had with him.


[10:53] Jim: Yeah. He's hysterical. He's a great guy to know. He still is. He's not passed. In fact, I believe he has a new book coming out soon. I saw it on Instagram.


[11:05] David: I wanted to get the timeline a little straight here, Jim, before we move forward. So, you started out writing a soap opera, and then you're like, “Yeah, this is going to work. I'm going to sell my house and move to New York,” and then, wavy hand, you were working at Marvel. Is that where we're at, so far? How many episodes of the soap opera did you write?


[11:25] Jim: I really was only in the writer development program. So, we would get an occasional script. So, I think I wrote about 10, in total, but it taught me a lot about serialized storytelling, because much like comics, these shows have been around, and these characters have been around—legacy characters—for over 40 years. Some over 60. So, I had to make sure that I was staying true to the voices of the character, and yet, moving the character forward, and that's a lot like what corporate comics is like. So, that really crash coursed, to me, on that.


[12:07] David: Yeah, it seems that would be a perfect training for writing monthly comic books. It seems like it's very similar muscles you're exercising. So, the 10 episodes that you wrote, did they all air?


[12:18] Jim: Yes, well, five of them, the head writers were like, “Okay, we're taking this in a different direction, and our existing writing team decided to rewrite the whole direction of stuff,” but I have those scripts in the ether.


[12:40] David: And then there's five that got through relatively unscathed, for better or worse.


[12:46] Jim: And it's crazy, the turnaround time—and we think comics is crazy. You have to write 80 to 90 pages in a week. You don't get a storyline that you're following. You get “Tuesday” a lot. So, you get everybody who's appearing in the show that day. So, you have to know all the storylines, all their backstory. I think I'm primed for a team book. If anybody's out there looking for somebody.


[13:15] David: How many writers were on that show at any given time, to hit that level of intensity?


[13:23] Jim: Four to five.


[13:24] David: Really? That's it?


[13:25] Jim: Yeah, each person writes 80 to 90 pages of script a week.


[13:30] John: That is wild. Wow.


[13:32] David: What's the burnout like?


[13:34] Jim: People stayed in it for forever because it's a passion project. The money is good for them, but yeah, they stay on it for a really, really long time.


[13:46] David: Okay. Wow, that's intense.


[13:48] Jim: It was very intense. It was a great bootcamp, for me. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and I would write a soap again in a minute. I actually would love to do a soap opera comic with interweaving storylines, and then one day, a character is drawn completely different because they've been recast.


[14:10] David: That's good. So, you've got to New York. You eventually make your way into Marvel. Quick turnaround on the hiring. How long were you in the the marketing department before you went part-time?


[14:22] Jim: Well, I was at Marvel for eight years. I think I only stayed for six months after I got New Avengers: Reunion. Okay.


[14:29] David: So, anyway, are they half-time, and then almost immediately, just went full writing?


[14:34] Jim: Yes, and then at that point, when I was half-time, I also started noodling around with a very dear and longtime friend, Janet Lee. I knew her because I lived one mile away from her, in Nashville, and we also knew each other before that, because we worked at Ingram Book Company, which is a big book distributor. I knew Janet for a very long time, and she started painting her Christmas cards, and then doing decoupage pieces of art for a local gallery, and I just thought, “this is a really good friend of mine. Her art style is totally different than anything I've seen in comics,” and I thought, “why not do an original graphic novel together?” So, I wrote what became the opening narration of Return of the Dapper Men, sent it to her with just the line, “want to do a graphic novel and then put that text in it?” And she said, “I have no idea how to do sequential storytelling,” and I said, “that's okay. I'll walk you through it during the script.” So, I think I wrote it in 30-page increments over three weekends.


[15:55] John: Geez.


[15:56] Jim: So, we were firing on all cylinders, and one of the reasons why is because she came up to New York, and she stayed at my house, and she camped out on the sofa, and then in the mornings, and all through the day, she would be doodling in her sketchbook, and thumb-nailing. Then I would look over her sketchbook, and I'd be like, “Oh, that's a really cool sketch. This person needs to be in the book.” So, we literally just feed off of each other when we work together. It's really cool and very collaborative. We thought this was just going to be a calling card book, like, “hey, I can do an original graphic novel and Janet can do art,” and it ended up winning the Eisner for Best Original Graphic Novel that year, which was crazy.


[16:45] David: Yeah, I remember that one.


[16:46] John: When you say her originals aren't like most comic book art, people talk about art-board, referring to thick paper, but she was literally putting this together on wood board.


[16:56] Jim: Yes, she would go to Lowe's or Home Depot, get wood cut to size, then she draws and colors, and then cuts out different parts. Sometimes she leaves some cutouts where you see the wood underneath it as a background, especially if it's wood paneling, where there's trees, or something like that, and then she just layers it on there with glue, and then shellacks it, and it is the heaviest portfolio known to man.


[17:31] John: My other Janet Lee story—I was saying hi to her at ComiCon a couple years ago. I think this is post-pandemic, but it might have been the last one before the pandemic, somewhere in the last several chunk of years. These two Japanese girls were in front of me, talking to her, I think, trying to convince her that she was Jae Lee, whose autograph they wanted. They had a bunch of Jae Lee prints, and they were trying to get her to sign them, and she kept trying to explain that she was a different person.


[17:57] Jim: With a big smile, I'm sure. She's one of the kindest people in comics. I'm very lucky to have her, and we're actually working on the second book, the sequel to Return of the Dapper Men. Yeah, we're doing another one. The band is back together—all of that.


[18:13] David: How long did it take her to put that book together? It sounds incredibly labor-intensive.


[18:18] Jim: Six to eight months for 100-page books.


[18:22] David: That's impressive.


[18:23] Jim: Towards the end, she was doing five to seven wood pages a day, and she had a team cutting out pieces. She would draw in color and then be like, “Okay, cut this, this, and this out, and let me go back to drawing and coloring the next page,” and then she put it all together. I think, the last two weeks, she did at least 10 or 11 pages.


[18:48] David: Was there some deadline you guys were trying to hit?


[18:50] Jim: We wanted to launch at New York ComiCon. We were doing just a special New York ComiCon limited edition, and then it came out in time for Christmas, and I'll never forget, George Gustines was kind enough to put us in the holiday gift guide on New York Times. I mean, I guess it earned it. I would like to think that it earned it, but it was amazing to see that on the front page of the lifestyle section of the New York Times.


[19:18] David: That's got to feel pretty nice. You put your first creator-owned work out there, and that happens. That doesn't suck at all.


[19:24] Jim: No, I would not say that.


[19:26] David: Correct me if I'm wrong, Jim. I think that book came out from, was it Archaia that did that book?


[19:30] Jim: Yes, Archaia did it, and then they were being bought by Boom!, but Janet and I wanted to get the rights back. We ended up getting the rights back, and now it's at Top Shelf.


[19:41] John: Is it still there? Is the second one through them?


[19:43] Jim: Yes. This is the first time I'm really talking about the second one. So, y'all are getting a scoop.


[19:48] John: But that was in the works for a really long time, right?


[19:50] Jim: Yeah, in Return of the Dapper Men, one of the editions, we added a page that said, “coming soon: Time of the Dapper Men,” and then life and things got away from us. I stepped away from comics for a little while—personal issues and life—and then coming back into it, a lot more. I started doing comics again with Star Trek: Year Five at IDW, with Chase Marotz writing, with Jackson and Collin, and Jody Houser, and Brandon Easton, and I did the whole 25-run of Star Trek: Year Five, which was bringing the Enterprise back to Earth, ending that five-year journey, which was a lot of fun. It was really cool, because it felt like I was in the writers’ room again, being super collaborative, and then I've pitched around a lot, and then that leads us to the present.


[20:58] John: Like friend of the show, Stephanie Williams, you're one of the initial writers coming out of Ignition Press.


[21:04] Jim: When Filip Sablik announced that he was going to be part of, at that time, it was just called [Redacted], because they didn't want to release the name yet, I immediately reached out and said, “Hey, do you want to have coffee?” So, we did, and then he asked for some pitches, and they really liked one of them. So, I started working on it—working on the contract. I was asked, “Who do I want to work with?” And I love Joe Eisma's work, especially his Morning Glories style. So, I asked, “is Joe Eisma available?” And sure enough, he was looking for something right after he had finished an OGN at Mad Cave. So, the timing worked out perfect. The stuff he's turning in is amazing. I can't say anything about when we launch, or much about it. The only thing that's really known is what we said at Comics Pro this year, which is that it's a romantic mystery with gay leads, and it's a send-up to movies, like The Thin Man. So, yeah. I'm a huge fan of that genre. So, yeah, I don't think there's enough Screwball comics on the stands these days.


[22:25] David: There's certainly not enough Screwball comics on the stands. I agree.


[22:29] John: I wanted to talk about something else. I did not know that's what the premise was. I saw everybody that was on there. I just intentionally didn't read what everything was. I enjoy not having everything spoiled. I just want to say, there's a thing I want to bring up to you later that is not me ripping off that idea from you, because it is something similar to that, that was floating around, and that is hilarious. I had no idea. There's nothing bad here, at all, but Andrew Griffith, who I'm doing the comic Signa with, he, at one point, sent me this, “You know what I really want to do? Something like this,” and I'm like, “Andrew, I'm going to send you a pitch that I put together,” because it's not at all what you were saying, but you're going to think I stole this idea from you. Here's the thing I’m sending.” So, I just want to flag that.


[23:11] David: Very generous of you, John.


[23:13] John: No, I just want to flag that. I am not a monster. […] anything that comes up out of this thing. That is so funny, though. Sorry. That sounds awesome. That sounds really cool.


[23:25] David: It sounds really awesome, Jim. He really loves this idea. He's never thought of it until this moment. I want you to be very clear on that.


[23:39] Jim: He's […] right now.


[23:42] John: You remember—I was going to bring up Civil War.


[23:44] David: Don't bring me into this, man. I'm not going to be part of this.


[23:47] John: You, Jim, remember the pitch that came in for Civil War at Marvel, right?


[23:52] Jim: Yeah.


[23:53] John: It was one of the artist studio guys, Joe Prado, or something. I can't remember whose studio it was, but somebody sent in a pitch. “You guys should do a comic called Civil War,” and the cover of it was similar to the not-yet-released, but very much designed, cover design of what Civil War was going to look like, because that was similar to the DVDs of the Civil War TV show, the Ken Burns one—not rip-off, but it was similar enough that you can see where they both came to these different places—but it was Captain America versus Iron Man, and all the heroes have to take sides, and we literally walked the agent over, and we're like, “look, there's no way you would believe this.” We pulled out all of the stuff that was planned for Civil War, and showed it to him, and he's like, “obviously, we didn't just make this up, since we got this pitch 15 seconds ago.” I don't know. I always think that's funny. Wasn’t “Whose side are you on?” Yours?


[24:48] Jim: Yes. As well as “who do you trust?” for Secret War and “Marvel Your Universe.”


[24:55] John: I thought that was Dokes. No, I'm just kidding.


[24:58] Jim: We discuss who that was. I was working under Dokes, at the time. So, we could have fed off the other. It's a long time ago. If John wants to take it, I'll give it to John.


[25:12] John: He was the guy who actually said, “Marvel your Universe.” He was the voice, when that came out, for their listeners at home. It's always funny. There are definitely things where I know people that are very good friends, that are like, “whatever this guy says, I'm the one who came up with this thing.”


[25:25] Jim: Am I going to have to say that about you in my new book?


[25:28] John: Yes.


[25:32] David: Those are some pretty great slogans that you came up with. I don't think we should gloss over that. That's some pretty incredible stuff—Super catchy, super simple, easy to remember, and those are probably two of the biggest, most successful events that Marvel's done, God, since—since that time, has Marvel done anything that hit that level of success? So, obviously, the marketing behind that was top-notch. Man, you saying those words, like, “whose side are you on? Who do you trust?” It immediately calls up the images that were attached to the ads in the magazine. It all comes back to me immediately, and I've got the worst memory on the planet. So, that's how powerful that stuff is. I didn't realize that you had done that.


[26:19] Jim: I also own—I don't know if you remember the piece for Civil War, where it was just all of the heroes on one big cover, and then a tear down the middle. It was a teaser image, and people started guessing, especially based on, “well, these people are on Cap’s side of the page, and these people are on Iron Man’s side of the page,” and all this stuff, and then I started seeing it on t-shirts and everything. I was like, “Man, I wish I got royalties.”


[26:50] David: There's always that.


[26:51] Jim: All joking aside, and stuff like that, I really owe Marvel a lot for launching my comic career. So, I'm always going to bleed a little bit of Marvel red.


[27:01] John: Yeah, likewise. One of the things that I thought really still strikes me from that particular time, and this is Secret Invasion, especially, is that, that summer, or whatever time that was coming out, Marvel was doing Secret Invasion and DC was doing Final Crisis. I'm a big Grant Morrison fan. I really like Final Crisis. I'm a big Bendis fan as well, and a big Leinil Francis Yu and Laura Martin fan. So, I like everybody involved in Secret Invasion. Secret Invasion is not my favorite comic by those people, but Final Crisis, I like a lot. Now, if I'm going to sit down and read one of those today, I'm probably going to read Final Crisis. I have Secret Invasion on my shelf. So, it's not like it's a huge gap between them or something, but that summer, the release of that, where I don't think anybody at DC knew what Final Crisis was. If anybody did, they certainly weren't communicating it to readers beyond “this is the story where the bad guys win,” which is act one of every superhero story, and the fact that there are all these crossovers in that comic that were either integral to the story or irrelevant, and nowhere in between, where Secret Invasion was “the shape-changing aliens show up and the heroes have to stop them. Who do you trust?” That's super crisp and super clear, and you immediately get it, and you immediately get the kinds of stories that can be told in it.

It teed up you doing the Hawkeye & Mockingbird stuff. It teed up Jason Aaron's career at Marvel, when he did the Black Panther one. Do you think about that when you're creating comics? Does that consciously inform the way you build comics, having come up with those? “Whose side are you on?” Is more more than a slogan. It was a focusing lens upon which what Civil War was about—internally and externally, “this is what this has to be about.” There's a question somewhere in there.


[28:50] Jim: What's funny, the book I'm writing for Ignition, one of the things that helps shape and form the flow of the story, and what I want to do in the story, are the titles of each issue that I come up with. So, it's gone a little bit more micro instead of macro, for me, and then when it comes time to market the book, we have a great marketing manager at Ignition, Brie, and she helps so much, and Filip and then Jeremy Haun, who's the Chief Creative Officer, and Jamie Rich, who's the Editor-in-Chief, they all have a lot of good inputs. It's a real group effort. The book was originally called something else—not Something Else. It was titled, but it had a different title.


[29:50] John: The book, whose title you can't tell us, didn't originally have that title that you can't tell us. It had a title you could tell us, that’s not the title anymore, but you really shouldn't, because it'll just confuse things.


[30:00] Jim: Yes, but they encouraged me to massage the title until it became something that is actually almost a “Who do you trust? Whose side are you on?” kind of title that almost tells you exactly what you're going to get. I really liked that.


[30:23] David: I think that's important. There's real players behind Ignition Press, but they’re still a new publishing company. They haven't got their toes in the water yet. So, having that ability to completely and fully describe the thing that you're trying to do in the title seems like a really great idea for that. I think that's real smart. You should always be doing that, I think. I'm glad to hear that they were pushing you to do that, and that you found a path for that, because I think that's going to be helpful.


[30:51] Jim: I really think so, too. One of the things about Ignition is that they put creator-first. They don't want to be “Ignition Press presents a book by Jim McCann.” They want it to be “a Jim McCann book published by Ignition.” They build each person's brand and want to sell books around the fans of the creators but also get the books in the right places. That's where you'll see stuff announced in non-traditional comic book places first, and also, I think they've done a really good job with titles and getting information across. Jeremy Haun’s Murder Podcast, it's pretty much that—“People who are true crime listeners begin to listen to this podcast, and violence ensues.”

Leah Williams has Voyeur coming out, and that's like a sexy art heist book that's very erotic. So, that really gets you into it, and then Stephanie Williams has Roots of Madness, which is her first creator-owned series, and it's with Ignition as well, and her title really gives you a sense of dread, which she's getting across in it.


[32:13] David: Which was surprising, to me, when I saw that book, because when we talked with her a few months back, I left our podcast that day, after chatting with her, I felt lighter. She was just really a joy to talk to.


[32:30] Jim: She really is. I only got a chance to talk to her briefly at Comics Pro, when we were going from the hotel to the afterparty for that night, but she was so exuberant and welcoming, and she, Leah, and I talk a lot on Instagram, and are super hyped up for each other's books. It's a really nice environment to be in. I really love it. I worked at Image, which was fun, but it was a lot more fun with my co-creators and people working on the book itself, and that's not to say anything against Eric, or anybody like that. They're more hands off—Image is—when it comes to things, and Ignition has been very hands off, but Maggie Howell is my editor, and she gives great notes. I know I'm in really good hands with her, and I usually dread notes, because I hate having to tear things that I've already laid out and think is awesome, but you realize that, “this makes it even better,” even if it's just popping a line of dialog out and doing it in an insert that gives it a more intimate moment, which is what she suggested on this one scene, and I thought “that is better.” So, editors are great, as you two know.


[34:01] David: Well, good editors are great. Not all editors are built the same. Certainly not removing myself from that group. Sometimes, editors feel like they're justifying their job, I think, and that's when it becomes problematic, but not very often. There's only a few that I've encountered like that.


[34:17] John: I've always had good editors, but I've heard stories of people explaining these terrible notes that were clearly mandates from other comic companies that I don't think any of us had ever worked with, that were maybe very big comic companies then and now, but maybe under different management now than they used to be. Some of those things just sound like—


[34:40] David: “What are we doing here?”


[34:41] John: Yeah. The rules of what you need to have or—I mean, I think we've all seen online, those bits from years ago, “Batman doesn't sit.” What are you talking about? That's not an editorial note.


[34:56] Jim: Bruce sits, but I guess Batman doesn't—wait, he has to sit, because in the Bat Cave— He’s also got to sit down to look at all those screens.


[35:07] David: Yeah, we see him sitting in the Bat Cave all the time.


[35:11] John: I just meant, that was the sort of note. That has nothing to do with Maggie.


[35:19] David: Well, Jim, it's great to see you coming back into comic books, it sounds like, in a big way. You've got the Ignition Press thing. I hope we'll be able to have you back on when you can actually talk more about the book, and I'm excited to hear that you've got to the Return of the Dapper Men. That is on the table somewhere, too. So, that's great to hear.


[35:37] Jim: Yes, and I've got some other things. I have some pitches in the fire, and I'm talking to another company right now that I'd love to work with also, and then I'm heavily involved in the Ignition book right now, but I'd love to work with them again.


[35:58] David: Yeah, it sounds like a good environment. I'm encouraged. I'm an internal skeptic when it comes to comic books, in general. So, I'm worried about Ignition Press, but I'm less worried after having heard you talk about how things are operating over here. That's good to hear. I'm definitely on-board for some of the initial launch. It's certainly not a lack of […] quality on the projects. I am excited for some of the books that are coming out.


[36:24] Jim: There's another cool thing that I just wanted to shout out to them, because I think it's awesome. At San Diego ComiCon, they have an off-site pop-up, and they'll have signings, but they also have exclusive merch for the books that have been announced, and also, I think they'll have Jeremy's Cold Open book, which gives you a taste of the Murder Podcasts, and I'm sure that they’ll have other stuff that I'm missing. I'm hoping that there will be a way for me to talk about my newsletter that I just launched, called a Gay Old Time. So, you can find that on JimMcCann.beehiiv.com, and you can sign up for it and get fun stuff, learn about my dog and cheeseburgers, and classic film, and comics.


[37:14] David: Did you just start that newsletter? Is that a new endeavor for you?


[37:18] Jim: It just launched two days ago. I'm super excited about it. In this first one, I lay out things to expect from it, and they won't all be in the same newsletter. I'll just pick three or five different topics, depending on how long. I'm trying to do a watch-along with classic films. So, the first one is The Thin Man, and give people two weeks to watch it, comment on it, if they want to, and then I'll do a deep dive into The Thin Man in the newsletter, and then say what the next movie is going to be, and that gives me two weeks to put all my thoughts together, and then also listen to commentaries, but I'm a huge fan of that era. So, I'm trying to keep it between the 30s and 50s. 


[38:05] John: Just saw there's a book of Hammett's treatments for the subsequent Thin Man movies.


[38:12] Jim: Oh, wow.


[38:13] John: It's a regular book. It's not hard to find. It was on sale on Kindle, or something, when it popped up. I never knew that he wrote the treatments for the other Thin Man movies.


[38:22] Jim: I didn't either. I know he wrote After The Thin Man.


[38:25] John: So, they're published like a novel, but it was just the film treatments, published like short stories, I guess. I haven't read them. So, I don't know what the state of them is.


[38:34] Jim: I'll have to give it a look.


[38:37] David: More homework.


[38:38] John: Presumably, not every movie is going to be in The Thin Man series, though.


[38:43] Jim: No, the one after that is probably going to be a Hitchcock film.


[38:47] David: I've been doing a lot of, not classic movies, but I've been doing a deep dive on just old B-movies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s—super low budget, bad movies. I've been just deep diving on that for the last 12 months. So, it would be nice to do a little palate cleanse, maybe. Maybe watch something of quality again.


[39:09] John: You have your list of bad movies on your newsletter, but the last thing you put on there was the Hammer Mummy movie.


[39:14] David: I have to make some exceptions. I have to make some exceptions. I think we should wrap it up, John, right? You’ve got to take your dog to the vet, or something.


[39:22] John: One of the other children needs me next.


[39:26] David: Well, thank you, Jim. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Good to reminisce. Excited for your work coming up.


[39:31] John: Yeah. We’d definitely love to have you on when it's closer and you can talk about it.


[39:34] Jim: Yeah, that'd be very cool. Thanks.


[39:36] John: Thanks a lot, everybody, and we'll be back next week with another episode of The Corner Box. Goodbye.


[39:44] David: Bye, everybody.


Thanks for joining us, and please subscribe, rate, and tell your friends about us. You can find updates, and links at www.thecornerbox.club, and we’ll be back next week with more from David, and John, here at The Corner Box.