Interview: 30 Years of TWOmorrow
Apr 09, 2024
Interview by Nicki Faust
Regardless of what time period or genre they cover, TwoMorrows works hard to provide its readers with in-depth coverage of history and creators, with a fun, positive slant, in the most professional manner possible.
Since 1994, it's been the future of comics, LEGO®, and pop culture history, with no end insight. You can learn the company's full history in their anniversary book THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS, available now through PREVIEWS!
In the following interview, publisher John Morrow gives you every reason to celebrate 30 years of TWOMORROW.
Please tell us a bit about yourself!
I'm John Morrow, TwoMorrows Publishing's publisher (my wife Pam is the other "Morrow"), and editor of the Jack Kirby Collector magazine, which launched my company with its first issue back in 1994. I'm, of course, a longtime Jack Kirby fan, but a lover of many of the great comic creators and series from the 1960s to today, as you’d expect seeing all our comics history magazines like Alter Ego, Back Issue, and Comic Book Creator. Our two little Morrows are both grown and in college now, but those daughters have thoroughly enjoyed getting to hang out at Comic-Con International and enjoying the West Coast almost every summer of their lives. It's hard to believe I started TwoMorrows 30 years ago with a little photocopied Jack Kirby fanzine...
What are your favorite projects you’ve contributed to over the past decade?
I may be most proud of my book Kirby & Lee: Stuf' Said, which for the first time examined both Jack and Stan's own comments about their working relationship, put in chronological order to help us more fully understand how things progressed in the creation of the 1960s Marvel Universe, and eventually deteriorated between them. Another is The Best of Simon & Kirby's Mainline Comics, which collects fully restored stories from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's own company Mainline Comics of the late 1950s. Few people have seen those comics, and the anti-comics crusade and the Comics Code killed their company before it had a chance to succeed.
What are you currently working on?
I'm wrapping up my 30th anniversary issue of the Jack Kirby Collector (#91), and we're about to launch our newest magazine, Cryptology (all about retro-horror) in October. We're also finalizing the 1945-49 volume of our American Comic Book Chronicles series to ship this summer, which will complete the set, covering comics history from the 1940s to 1990s. And our retro-pop culture magazine RetroFan continues to be a blast to produce, as well as our recent series of pop culture books.
What fun titles are you reading?
I don't read many floppies these days, but I love Dark Horse's EC Archives; they're a great way to introduce today's readers to that classic material, while keeping it affordable. You can't reprint EC enough, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm intrigued to see what Oni Press' new EC-style titles Epitaphs from the Abyss and Cruel Universe are like when they debut this summmer. Also, Fantagraphics' Atlas Comics Library series is fantastic. Michael "Doc V" Vassallo is doing an outstanding job shepherding this project. I recently read their Atlas Artist Edition #1 featuring Joe Maneely (SEP231701), who is an under-appreciated genius of comics.
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Nicki Faust's heart is as cold as concrete in the Chicago winter. When not writing for PREVIEWSworld, Nicki is busy playing Limbo on Twitch, writing about the great robot uprising on Medium, and completing the untitled follow-up to the 2012 best-seller, Sue Storm: A Nude Photobook.
