Blood and Thunder: Kernow Craig Interview

Photo by Rafaela Pandolfini

Rafaela Pandolfini interviews Kernow Craig of Sydney design and printing outfit Blood and Thunder.

Jim Shepherd Remembrance

Jim Shepherd - Managing Director and Publisher Frew Publications Pty Limited 1987 - 2013.

[Editors note: The following remembrance of Jim Shepherd, written by his wife Judith Shepherd, ran as the editorial in The Phantom #1663 published by Frew Publications May 2013.]

William James (Jim) Shepherd

It is with great sadness, I tell you that Jim died suddenly in the early evening of Monday 15 April 2013. This is, without doubt, a very sad time for me, his family and indeed for you, our loyal Phantom readers of many years here in Australia and all around the world.

     Jim enjoyed a diverse and exciting career as a journalist, broadcaster and author, long before he met The Ghost Who Walks. Born 21 August 1933, Jim became a well-known and respected sports commentator, firstly in Sydney's newspaper circles, before branching out into radio, and later became the Sporting Director for Sydney's Channel 0 (later Channel 10) television station during 1964-1970.

     As a journalist Jim covered a wide variety of sports, including Rugby League, Boxing, Soccer, Athletics, Golf, Tennis and Cycling. His encyclopaedic knowledge of sports and sports stars would serve him well for his next career. In 1974 he completed and wrote The Australian Sporting Almanac (Hamlyn 1974), the first of many successful sporting reference titles, he would write on behalf of other publishers as well as for his own book imprint, Sportsbook Publishing Co. These included The Encyclopaedia of Australian Sport, (Rigby 1979), Rothmans Australian Rugby Yearbook (Sportsbook 1983), Great Moments in Australian Sport (Angus & Robertson, 1987) and Big Rev Kev (Landsdowne,1983), the autobiography of Australian racing driver, Kevin Bartlett, was co-authored with Jim.

     Motor racing remained a life-long passion for Jim who began racing stock cars on the local speedway dirt track circuit before progressing to Formula Two (2000 cc) road racing events.

     Such was Jim's enthusiasm for the sport he wrote two books on the subject, A History of Australian Motor Sport (Sportsbook, 1980) and A History of Australian Speedway (Frew Publications, 2003) - indeed, Jim later delightedly declared that his Speedway book was a near total sell out!

     Jim's involvement with The Phantom dates back to 1987 when Frew Publications surviving founders, Ron Forsyth and Lawford 'Jim' Richardson approached him for advice on how they could rejuvenate their Company's sole remaining comic book title. Jim came on board with The Phantom No 875 (1987) Old Baldy and steadily undertook incremental changes designed to improve the comic book. Such changes included reinstating the old Frew logo on the front cover along with the inclusion of the Phantom Forum letters page (No 917, 1988).

     But arguably his greatest achievement was to commence reprinting unedited, original classic Lee Falk Phantom adventures from the 1930s and 1940s. Thus the beginning of the Frew 'renaissance'.

     Similar to The Phantom The Ghost Who Walks—The Man Who Cannot Die, Jim, himself, was a legend to both the sporting community and Phantom World.
 
     His life was a wonderful journey and I was fortunate to share part of my life with him. The Legend Lives On.

Sincerely Judith Shepherd, Senior Editor

[Reproduced with the kind permission of Judith Shepherd.]

Jim Shepherd 1933 - 2013

Cover of the first Australian produced Phantom story written by publisher Shepherd with art by Keith Chatto.

2012 in Review: Darren Koziol

 Darren Koziol

What have been your personal publishing/comics highlights of 2012?

Personal comic highlights of 2012 for me have been putting out 3 great issues of DECAY, including the very popular "CTHULHU" and "END OF THE WORLD" issues, now with 40% colour in every issue. Attending comic book conventions around Australia, including the new Oz Comic Con, and meeting and networking with more and more creators and fans has made the year rewarding. Seeing other Aussie creators putting out their own comic books and my all time favourite comic book 2000AD reaching 1800 issues has been great to see. And Judge Dredd being made into an awesome movie with the best 3-D so far of any movie I've seen: brilliant. Dave Follett winning the Australian Stanley Award for 'best comic book artist' for his work on the short story "Strange Appetite" in DECAY (issue #9). Meeting Stan Lee in Melbourne was awesome. And I've really been enjoying the new Crossed comic books.
 
Who are some of the comics creators that you've discovered and enjoyed for the first time in 2012?

There's been heaps of new creators coming on board to DECAY, mostly from within Australia but also a few overseas people too. Charith Wijewardane, Lachlan Creagh, Paul Briske, Kurt Stone, Jake Rundle, Danos Philopoulos, Rayaan Cassiem, Riyahd Cassiem, and many many others have all come to work on DECAY in just this last year, bringing the total number of creators so far, in 14 issues from 3 years, to over 90.

 What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2012?

There's been heaps of great movies coming out this year. Almost every week there's an average of 2 to 3 new movies that I want to see. I've seen a lot but missed others. It seems to be the year of great entertaining films. I've been to several art exhibitions by friends and people who've worked for DECAY. I've also been doing a graphic design course at Tafe which has been extremely enjoyable, along with meeting all of the other people on the course and building new friendships.

Have you implemented any significant changes to your working methods this year?
 
I've learnt a lot about art, illustration, typography, computers and design on a graphic design course. These are all valuable things for me to learn towards producing DECAY. I've also been learning more about becoming a better writer and feel that some of my stories have benefited from that. My time management is still poor, and I still procrastinate too much, and the long hours spent at Tafe have taken away from some of the time I've been able to spend on DECAY.
 
What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Next year I look forward to finishing my graphic design course. I also look forward to continuing to produce new issues of DECAY. There's also the possibility of one or two other comics coming out from DARK OZ. There's also a lot more conventions planned around Australia for 2013, including William Shatner at Oz Comic Con, and it all starts off in January with Oz Horror Con in Melbourne. I hope to see you all there.

 www.darkoz.com.au