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.]
