Twenty years in any business is an accomplishment worth celebrating. But 20 years of surviving the fickle and ever-shifting tastes of comic book fans—when you don’t even publish comic books!—is a special event unto itself. And that’s exactly what John Morrow has accomplished with TwoMorrows Publishing, the Raleigh, North Carolina-based book company that has carved out a niche for itself as a resource for fans who want to know more about the comic books—and the comic book creators—they love.
JOHN MORROW podcast excerpt: "I've been doing this magazine about Jack Kirby for 20 years now and I'm still finding new pieces of art that people didn't know existed and stories by him, letters he wrote to people. We're still finding interviews he did that had not been published in the U.S. or were published in a 10-copy fanzine that nobody has ever seen."Maybe you don’t know the publisher, but if you know and care about comics fandom, you surely know TwoMorrows’ line of comics magazines and books, including:
• Alter Ego, the ultimate fanzine, produced by the ultimate fan turned comics pro turned fan again, Marvel Comics legend Roy “The Boy” Thomas;
• Back Issue magazine, edited by Michael Eury;
• Comic Book Creator, edited by my old friend Jon B. Cooke; • Draw!, an instructional manual;
• And American Comic Book Chronicles, a deluxe hardcover book series edited by Keith Dallas—a recent Mr. Media guest—that looks and feels a bit like an Encyclopedia Britannica of comics, with volumes written by historical authorities including Dallas, John Wells, Roy Thomas, and Bill Schelly;
TwoMorrows also publishes a line of standalone books devoted to individual comics creators, including Joe Kubert, Marie Severin, Filmation founder Lou Scheimer, and an upcoming Don Heck book. That’s in addition to the “Modern Masters” series, which has included everyone from George Perez and Bruce Timm to Walt Simonson and Mark Schultz (yet another past Mr. Media guest).
John’s very first publication was The Jack Kirby Collector #1 in 1994. That magazine recently published its 62nd issue and shows no signs of slowing down. I’ll be honest: I don’t know a lot about the history of TwoMorrows or what has sustained John for two decades. But I’m hoping we’ll all know a whole lot more when we’re done!
TwoMorrows Publishing Website • Facebook • Wikipedia • Order American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1980s from Amazon.com
