MattBrady
11-28-2002, 09:21 AM
When news of Image Comics adding Paul Grist’s Jack Staff as a new color title to it’s line up, a “Hurrah!” went up from eastern side for the Atlantic, while the largest sentiment of comments from the Colonies was either, “Huh?” or “Isn’t that Union Jack?”
Originally self-published by Grist, Jack Staff was plagued by a few common problems – the book was a superhero comic outside of the big four publishers, it was coming from England, and, while Grist is a respected creator, his profile for the bulk of the American comics market is rather low. But still, Jack Staff garnered favorable reviews and had a small but loyal core of fans.
All in all – ripe for addition to Image, if’n Grist was willing. And he was.
But before we move deeper into the upcoming new series under Image or the deal itself, from Grist himself, a quick Jack Staff 101, explaining the whos, wheres, and whys of the series.
“The series is set in Castletown, a small British town that seems to be the focal point for some very strange events,” Grist explained. “Jack Staff is Britain's Greatest Hero! But not an awful lot is known about him - he fought alongside the Freedom Fighters - including Sgt. States, Blazing Glory and Tommy Twister during World War 2 - but he's been around a bit longer than that. But 20 years ago he just disappeared.
“Becky Burdock, Girl Reporter for the tabloid Worlds Press was investigating the disappearance of Jack Staff and got caught up in a rather unfortunate bit of business, fully detailed in Jack Staff book 1: Yesterday's Heroes, resulting in her now working as a Vampire Reporter.
“Tom Tom the Robot Man is Castletowns crimefighting hero. But, if the truth be known, he isn't a robot. He isn't even a man. There's also Q, a group of individuals who investigate Question Mark Crimes, the crimes that involve the bizarre, the unexplainable. So far we've been introduced to three Q agents. Each one has their own unique talent, and also their own agenda.
“Then there's the vampire hunting double act of Bramble and Son, Charlie Raven the great Victorian Escapolgist... I could go on!”
Grist acknowledges that a superhero comic, even with Jack Staff’s particular trappings, is a departure of what he’s arguably best known for, the crime noir-ish Kane, however, stressed that with Jack Staff, he’s looking to emulate a completely different style and feel.
“I’m trying to recreate the atmosphere of a British Boy's Comic Anthology - with several different stories which interlink in different ways,” Grist said. “A lot of the characters are based on old British comic characters - many of whom haven't actually been in print for over thirty years, but can still bring a misty far away look to the eye of British comic readers of a 'certain age' at the mention of their names. Tom Tom the robot man for instance is generally thought by American readers to be variation on Iron Man, whilst a British reader might recognise him as Robot Archie.
“Also, there's a great flexibility to what you can do with a superhero title that you couldn't get away with in a 'straight' crime comic like Kane. I like the idea of characters sitting round debating the fate of the universe and having a break for a biscuit and a cup of tea.”
For American readers who’ve been able to find issues of Jack Staff, many have found a similarity of sorts to Marvel’s Union Jack character, from the costume on up. In fact, the original series’ flashback storyline (in issue #3) pitting Jack and shield-bearing Sgt. States against the vampire, Templar Richard, had almost a beat-for-beat homage of the classic Roger Stern/John Byrne Captain America/Union Jack storyline. In both stories, the shield-carrying American heroes cut the head of the vampire off with their protective accessories.
When asked about the similarities between Jack Staff and that other Jack, Grist doesn’t even try to hide. “The original seed for what grew into Jack Staff was an idea I had for a Union Jack series for Marvel comics,” the creator said. “I wrote to Marvel asking if they'd be interested in a proposal but they never got back to me! It was only later that I found out that Marvel had already published a Union Jack mini series earlier that year, which was 1999). Having said that, there was never a proposal written out for Union Jack or anything. After sending out the initial letter to Marvel it occurred to me that if I wanted, I could do a series myself based round the idea of a British superhero. As a result, Jack Staff grew into a very different story to anything I would have been able to do with Union Jack. The only thing that I had in mind for the Union Jack series that I've kept for Jack Staff is the character of Becky Burdock, Vampire Reporter.”
From the outset of creating Jack Staff, Grist never really considered any other avenue other than self-publishing under his own Dancing Elephant Press. “Self-publishing was the natural thing to do - one of the ideas was to bring new readers into Kane,” Grist said. “And the great thing about self publishing is you don't have to wait for anybody to give you the 'green light' - you can just go ahead and do it! It would certainly never have occurred to me to approach Image as a publisher.”
And while Jack Staff failed to make much of a dent in the states, it did get a warmer reception in it’s native England. However – sales on both continents failed to lift the title very high into the Top 300, so Grist gradually became open to other ideas regarding publication. Even though he was warm to the idea of alternative publications means, Grist said he was as surprised as anyone when he was approached by Image Comics.
“Jack Staff has been more successful, sales-wise, than Kane was, but I'm still pretty much at the bottom of the pile in the top 300 comics sales figures,” Grist said. “Image offers an opportunity for the comic to have much higher profile -full-page coverage in the Previews catalogue - advertising through other Image comics and full colour printing. Sounds like a good deal to me - at least it means there's more chance that people are actually going to be able to see it in the shops.
“When Image got in touch initially, I was assuming that they were thinking about continuing it as a black and white title - it was certainly their idea to go for a full colour comic, and that's what swung it for me. That gave me chance to do something that I wouldn't be able to do on my own.”
Grist said that while the new #1 issue from Image will start a new story, he’s aiming to make the new series as friendly as possible to readers who’ve never even heard of Jack Staff. “You're not going to have read all the Dancing Elephant Press issues to follow what's going on, though obviously I'm going to be building on what I've already done,” Grist said. “They'll all be collected, so it's going to be pretty easy for folks to get up to speed on what's happened.
“My plan, at the moment, is to collect all the Dancing Elephant Press issues in 3 black and white trades which I'll be publishing myself. Once that's done, if the demand is there I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of Essential Jack Staff book collecting all 12 issues in a single volume through Image. We'll see.”
Like all new newcoming Image series, Jack Staff will have a bi-monthly release schedule to being with. “If I think I can get it out more frequently I will, but I don't want to promise something I can't deliver - I'm sure that would hurt sales more,” Grist said. “The first major storyline will be bringing back Tom Tom the robot man but there's not much more planned out other than that at the moment - I've still got 3 issues to go before I start to worry about that.”
As for whether or not readers could expect to see a similar deal with his Kane series, Grist said that the agreement with Image is only for Jack Staff. “I'd be quite happy continuing to put out Kane through Dancing Elephant Press,” Grist said. “Obviously though, a lot of Kane’s future has to do with how the deal works out with Jack Staff. We'll see. But whatever happens, Kane will continue to be a black and white book.”
And speaking of Kane, while the regular series may have ended, the book, concept and character are in no way dead, according to Grist. “The idea is that Kane will be released as a series of original books which will come out every year or so. My initial plan was to have the first all new book out this time next year.
“Because of the Image deal I now need to get more ahead on Jack Staff before I start to work on the Kane book, so more realistically it's going to be the end of 2003 before the new book comes out. I want to make sure it's all completed before I solicit for it, so it'll take a little while, but hopefully it'll be worth it. In the meantime, I'll be collecting all the issues up to the last, #31 in trade paperback form.”
Originally self-published by Grist, Jack Staff was plagued by a few common problems – the book was a superhero comic outside of the big four publishers, it was coming from England, and, while Grist is a respected creator, his profile for the bulk of the American comics market is rather low. But still, Jack Staff garnered favorable reviews and had a small but loyal core of fans.
All in all – ripe for addition to Image, if’n Grist was willing. And he was.
But before we move deeper into the upcoming new series under Image or the deal itself, from Grist himself, a quick Jack Staff 101, explaining the whos, wheres, and whys of the series.
“The series is set in Castletown, a small British town that seems to be the focal point for some very strange events,” Grist explained. “Jack Staff is Britain's Greatest Hero! But not an awful lot is known about him - he fought alongside the Freedom Fighters - including Sgt. States, Blazing Glory and Tommy Twister during World War 2 - but he's been around a bit longer than that. But 20 years ago he just disappeared.
“Becky Burdock, Girl Reporter for the tabloid Worlds Press was investigating the disappearance of Jack Staff and got caught up in a rather unfortunate bit of business, fully detailed in Jack Staff book 1: Yesterday's Heroes, resulting in her now working as a Vampire Reporter.
“Tom Tom the Robot Man is Castletowns crimefighting hero. But, if the truth be known, he isn't a robot. He isn't even a man. There's also Q, a group of individuals who investigate Question Mark Crimes, the crimes that involve the bizarre, the unexplainable. So far we've been introduced to three Q agents. Each one has their own unique talent, and also their own agenda.
“Then there's the vampire hunting double act of Bramble and Son, Charlie Raven the great Victorian Escapolgist... I could go on!”
Grist acknowledges that a superhero comic, even with Jack Staff’s particular trappings, is a departure of what he’s arguably best known for, the crime noir-ish Kane, however, stressed that with Jack Staff, he’s looking to emulate a completely different style and feel.
“I’m trying to recreate the atmosphere of a British Boy's Comic Anthology - with several different stories which interlink in different ways,” Grist said. “A lot of the characters are based on old British comic characters - many of whom haven't actually been in print for over thirty years, but can still bring a misty far away look to the eye of British comic readers of a 'certain age' at the mention of their names. Tom Tom the robot man for instance is generally thought by American readers to be variation on Iron Man, whilst a British reader might recognise him as Robot Archie.
“Also, there's a great flexibility to what you can do with a superhero title that you couldn't get away with in a 'straight' crime comic like Kane. I like the idea of characters sitting round debating the fate of the universe and having a break for a biscuit and a cup of tea.”
For American readers who’ve been able to find issues of Jack Staff, many have found a similarity of sorts to Marvel’s Union Jack character, from the costume on up. In fact, the original series’ flashback storyline (in issue #3) pitting Jack and shield-bearing Sgt. States against the vampire, Templar Richard, had almost a beat-for-beat homage of the classic Roger Stern/John Byrne Captain America/Union Jack storyline. In both stories, the shield-carrying American heroes cut the head of the vampire off with their protective accessories.
When asked about the similarities between Jack Staff and that other Jack, Grist doesn’t even try to hide. “The original seed for what grew into Jack Staff was an idea I had for a Union Jack series for Marvel comics,” the creator said. “I wrote to Marvel asking if they'd be interested in a proposal but they never got back to me! It was only later that I found out that Marvel had already published a Union Jack mini series earlier that year, which was 1999). Having said that, there was never a proposal written out for Union Jack or anything. After sending out the initial letter to Marvel it occurred to me that if I wanted, I could do a series myself based round the idea of a British superhero. As a result, Jack Staff grew into a very different story to anything I would have been able to do with Union Jack. The only thing that I had in mind for the Union Jack series that I've kept for Jack Staff is the character of Becky Burdock, Vampire Reporter.”
From the outset of creating Jack Staff, Grist never really considered any other avenue other than self-publishing under his own Dancing Elephant Press. “Self-publishing was the natural thing to do - one of the ideas was to bring new readers into Kane,” Grist said. “And the great thing about self publishing is you don't have to wait for anybody to give you the 'green light' - you can just go ahead and do it! It would certainly never have occurred to me to approach Image as a publisher.”
And while Jack Staff failed to make much of a dent in the states, it did get a warmer reception in it’s native England. However – sales on both continents failed to lift the title very high into the Top 300, so Grist gradually became open to other ideas regarding publication. Even though he was warm to the idea of alternative publications means, Grist said he was as surprised as anyone when he was approached by Image Comics.
“Jack Staff has been more successful, sales-wise, than Kane was, but I'm still pretty much at the bottom of the pile in the top 300 comics sales figures,” Grist said. “Image offers an opportunity for the comic to have much higher profile -full-page coverage in the Previews catalogue - advertising through other Image comics and full colour printing. Sounds like a good deal to me - at least it means there's more chance that people are actually going to be able to see it in the shops.
“When Image got in touch initially, I was assuming that they were thinking about continuing it as a black and white title - it was certainly their idea to go for a full colour comic, and that's what swung it for me. That gave me chance to do something that I wouldn't be able to do on my own.”
Grist said that while the new #1 issue from Image will start a new story, he’s aiming to make the new series as friendly as possible to readers who’ve never even heard of Jack Staff. “You're not going to have read all the Dancing Elephant Press issues to follow what's going on, though obviously I'm going to be building on what I've already done,” Grist said. “They'll all be collected, so it's going to be pretty easy for folks to get up to speed on what's happened.
“My plan, at the moment, is to collect all the Dancing Elephant Press issues in 3 black and white trades which I'll be publishing myself. Once that's done, if the demand is there I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of Essential Jack Staff book collecting all 12 issues in a single volume through Image. We'll see.”
Like all new newcoming Image series, Jack Staff will have a bi-monthly release schedule to being with. “If I think I can get it out more frequently I will, but I don't want to promise something I can't deliver - I'm sure that would hurt sales more,” Grist said. “The first major storyline will be bringing back Tom Tom the robot man but there's not much more planned out other than that at the moment - I've still got 3 issues to go before I start to worry about that.”
As for whether or not readers could expect to see a similar deal with his Kane series, Grist said that the agreement with Image is only for Jack Staff. “I'd be quite happy continuing to put out Kane through Dancing Elephant Press,” Grist said. “Obviously though, a lot of Kane’s future has to do with how the deal works out with Jack Staff. We'll see. But whatever happens, Kane will continue to be a black and white book.”
And speaking of Kane, while the regular series may have ended, the book, concept and character are in no way dead, according to Grist. “The idea is that Kane will be released as a series of original books which will come out every year or so. My initial plan was to have the first all new book out this time next year.
“Because of the Image deal I now need to get more ahead on Jack Staff before I start to work on the Kane book, so more realistically it's going to be the end of 2003 before the new book comes out. I want to make sure it's all completed before I solicit for it, so it'll take a little while, but hopefully it'll be worth it. In the meantime, I'll be collecting all the issues up to the last, #31 in trade paperback form.”