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As a writer, publisher and authorised representative of the comic properties created by Simon and Kirby Studios, Jim Simon knows a thing or two about superheroes. DS caught up with the creator to discuss his latest project ShieldMaster, Protector Of The Heroes.
ShieldMaster deals with a lot of interesting concepts, from superheroes to other planes of reality. What inspired the book?
"I wanted to do a story in sort of a retro comic book style, touching on a variety of bases in kind of a mash-up way. While the first story stands on its own, I envision this as part of a larger story, and the several concepts, including various planes of reality as you put it, will all get played out to some degree or another should we decide to go on beyond the first story."
"I have been meaning to tell the full ShieldMaster story for some time but the story in this particular book is just a part of the larger story. In fact, I was a little surprised since the story in this book took a somewhat different path from what I had initially planned. But that is the way things sometimes turn out in a collaborative medium, especially when a creative team is working across the pond with each other, and working in different languages."
"As I implied, I can't give the full plot of the story here, but I'd like to mention one of the themes that run through not only this particular story but also the larger ShieldMaster story. The theme is relatively simple on the surface but on a deeper level it touches on the idea of what happens when someone accepts certain things into their life. Early in the story, four young people are hiking in a vacated military area. Rumours of experiments that were conducted on this military base are well known among the locals. Some believe the rumours hold credence because years earlier the military base was suddenly abandoned in the middle of the night, closed off from the public. Getting back to the hikers, they uncover some strange shield-like objects on this abandoned military base. Something, not only a tremendous energy, radiates from these objects, and each hiker is, in turn, drawn to a particular object, resurrecting each of the young people as the embodiments of the powerful shield objects just as all hell is about to break loose."
The comic appears to draw influence from the Silver Age. Do you think that bygone eras are increasingly influencing contemporary creators?
"It seems a number of characters from the Golden and Silver Ages have been and will continue to get rebooted. If a Golden/Silver Age character has something unique or classic about it, a well-executed reboot of the character can be quite interesting. The ShieldMaster prototype art has a Silver-Age aura about it, and Reed's story art, in my opinion, from what I have seen, takes it to another level while still capturing that aura - And for good reason, as the reader will discover at the end of this particular story."
"Reed saw some prototype art of ShieldMaster as well as an earlier story treatment, and an arrangement was made to publish a graphic story in hardcover format. Reed is an artist and the head honcho of Organic Comix. Jean is a screenwriter and comic scripter/translator. Both are big fans of Silver Age American comics. Organic Comix has published such American comic giants as Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the French language. Organic Comix has been producing mainstream and underground comics for the last 20 years, starting with the anthology Reptile, and publishing top French artists such as Arnon, Brun and others, as well as publishing Strange, one of the most famous superhero magazines in France."
"There's some good, independent publishing going on in France. I am doing the ShieldMaster story with Organic Comix because they respect creator-owned projects, they are enthusiastic, and I am interested in doing something that is somewhat different from the current American style of comic art. The translation of my vision of the ShieldMaster story, as you might imagine, somewhat concerns me because of the language difference and my inability to be near the drawing board, but I don't believe in micromanaging, especially when it comes to artists. From what I've seen of the book so far, there are some things I'm open to change and I made several suggestions; some that the artist agreed with, some that he disagreed with. That's okay, and regarding the things that we disagreed on, I'll just let him run with it the way he wants. We'll see how it turns out and hope we create some magic."
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