Comic historian, lawyer, and professor Jim Thompson has studied comics and collecting for most of his life. In this interview with Overstreet Advisor Art Cloos, Thompson talks about his journey as a comics fan, the Comic Historian Facebook group, scholarly aspects of comics, fan community, and the future of the comics medium.

Scoop: Jim, I’m excited to have you sit down with me for an interview.
Jim Thompson (JT): I am excited to be here.

Scoop: Let’s start at the beginning. When did comic books first become a part of your life?
JT: Probably earlier that I can remember. I suspect when people quote their first comic, there are plenty that actually precede it. But I was around 7, which would mean 1967. I loved The Marvel Super Heroes shows, I had loved the [Ralph] Bakshi cartoon heroes as well and the comics I loved were around the same time. The Road to Damascus though, the turning point was Fantastic Four that’s what hooked me hard. It was probably the 1968 era Fantastic Four. Another aspect is that I could always draw. So I copied page after page of these comics, especially splash pages from early on. By 8 or 9 they were a big part of my life. Batman on TV was a factor too. The Riddler stands out.

Scoop: Frank Gorshin got an Emmy nomination.
JT: When I was living in Malibu at law school in 1986, I was at the outside mart and I heard Burgess Meredith talking and it sounded just like the Penguin. He and Gorshin were both brilliant. 1971 was a big moment too, when [Jack] Kirby went to DC. That is when my creator awareness really blossomed. At that point I became a student of comics.

Scoop: I actually got to hang out with him one night at a Motor City Con back in the ’90s. He played pool and we all had more than a few libations that Saturday night.
JT: Man, I loved him in everything, even Where the Boys Are. He was great in that.

Scoop: Where did you grow up?
JT: I was born in Richmond, VA and grew up there. I left at 25 for law school.

Scoop: Were you a reader, collector, or both?
JT: I’m a collector in that I have almost every comic I ever bought, apart from the Archies I donated to a school sale (fine, except for the Little Archies, and I wish I still had them) and I sold my [John] Buscema Conan [comics] for some reason while in college. But I am not a collector in money terms. I just love having hard copies. I know where I was when I read all of the old comics. I can’t do that with the new ones. But I am really more a reader. The day I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula was what cemented me as a reader in general. I am a big reader. With comics, it seemed like someone always came along to keep me in the game whenever I might otherwise be “aging” out. It was [Alan] Moore in the early ’80s, then [Neil] Gaiman. There was so many.

Scoop: So, you never had that time when you stepped away from comics for other pursuits? I know I did, and it was called post-grad school.
JT: Never, not law school, not when living abroad, not grad school. I rarely miss a Wednesday. It’s my normalcy.

Scoop: Wow, you beat me out. I didn’t have the time or money when I was doing my grad and post-grad work.
JT: If I miss a week or more, or don’t read what I get for a month then something is up with me and I have to get right.

Scoop: You still buy the new books today?
JT: I buy less Marvel and DC than any other time in my life, but yes some. There’s some great stuff out there. But my tastes have broadened and we are in a golden age of archival stuff too. Why read the new Hulk when I can read Pogo or Barnaby? These are tough choices. There was the Flintstones from a couple years back and there is Snagglepuss, both done by Mark Russell with incredible satire.

Scoop: Growing up, did you have friends who were into comics too?
JT: Only one really, Squirrel O’Brien. He left school in the 9th grade. I then got the highest SAT scores in my class a few years later. Then I heard Squirrel, at rival school, beat my score. We were the smart guys who both underperformers in class, both crazy about comics. He’s the one who was super excited that Kirby was moving to DC. We talked about every issue. In awe. But he was it.

Scoop: What a great name.
JT: Yeah, Squirrel was great, super smart. I think he ended up in prison though. There was one other time that I have to mention. When I was baseball manager in 10th grade or so, I brought all my comics, jungle, action, supernatural thrillers, Man-Thing on the team bus. The jocks often gave me a hard time, but I started sharing those comics, pushing them as it were. And they all loved them though they probably never bought any on their own. But they loved them. Same thing happened in 1986 we were in a London program at Pepperdine and Watchmen and Dark Knight were hitting the stores. I had every guy in the program reading each issue of Watchmen. Those are my recruitment stories.

Scoop: Did you ever go to comic conventions?
JT: I went to several shows in Richmond in the mid to late ’70s, they were small things. But I was feeling very counterculture and sophisticated because I read Steve Gerber. I bought back issues of everything Gene Colan and a lot of early Avengers. I wish I had bought more. But I also got my parents to vacation early on in big cities so I could go to real comic stores like in New York and Philadelphia. I don’t know which ones, but they would have probably been advertised in [The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide] or somewhere. Besides comics, I was a horse guy. I rode both Western and English style.

Scoop: When did you decide that law was what you wanted to do?
JT: I’ll let you know when I decide. It was my ticket out of Richmond more than anything else. I had been a journalism major undergrad and Law and Media was my favorite class, I had notions of being a first amendment lawyer. If I would have known of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, I would have gone straight for a career there.

Scoop: It’s funny, when I was a young kid, a lawyer friend of my dad came to visit us. He was nice and I started saying I wanted to be a lawyer. It was one of the many big mistakes I have made because my family would not let me go back on it. But I knew early on I wanted to be a teacher and that is what I did become.
JT: I don’t know if law school made me act like a lawyer or I went to law school because I had those tendencies. People were telling me I would end up a lawyer early on.

Scoop: What kind of law do you practice today?
JT: Out of law school I was hired by an insurance defense firm and they immediately sent me to Puerto Rico to work exclusively on a hotel fire case. I became the polyethylene foam guy. I loved Puerto Rico and hated the foam. When I got back a year later I went looking for something with actual people. I had am jur Family Law in school so I applied at a big LA firm and got the job. I have been in that field ever since, for better or worse. Am jur is when you get the highest grade in the course, you get a prize.

Scoop: You have become a noted comic historian and you are part of the Comic Historian Facebook group and website. How did that come about?
JT: About 10 years after law school, I had my own family law practice and was unmarried. There was more flexibility than I would ever have again and I needed a creative outlet besides law. So I went to grad school at USC in Film Critical Studies and got accepted in the Ph.D. program which in turn led to a job with Duke University as faculty director of their Duke in Los Angeles program. Part of the position was teaching a Duke film class for Duke students. But while the students were here in Los Angeles for the spring semester, my bosses were 3,000 miles away and I was teaching genre theory. More and more I began integrating comics into the curriculum. The timing was perfect as comics were becoming integrated with film. I did that job for 15 years until my son turned 3, he’s 6 now. I just couldn’t handle three jobs, as professor, full time lawyer, and Duke so I gave up the Duke job and teaching. But that left a hole. I like teaching. I started posting stuff in various Facebook groups and after about six months of doing that, Alex Grand, founder of the Comic Book Historians Group, reached out to me and asked if I would be the moderator of that group. It’s been a third career for me in many ways. I was already doing papers on comics at film conferences while teaching and in grad school and after that, but Comic Book Historians really put it front and center.

Scoop: Can you tell us a little bit about the Comic Historian group. What goes on in there?
JT: I’m very proud of it. The first and primary aspect is still the actual Facebook group. We are just shy of 10,000 members made up of fans, actual historians, and academics and professionals. We are not a just post a cover kind of group, although there’s some of that. There is some solid historical research posted in the group. We cover everything from the early origins of the comics form to modern comics. We do comics and comic strips. Alex and I work very hard to keep this from being a fan bickering site. Civility is required and we try for some intellectual rigor as much as possible in a group this size. A couple of years ago, I started a daily post there where I said I’d post a horse by a different artist every day for a year. I thought it would be fun, just something to do. But it turned out to be one of the most educational exercises I have ever experienced. One horse may be by [Richard F.] Outcault, the next by some unknown Philippines artist who influenced the DC wave of the Filipino artists in the 1970s, followed by the founders of Spirou. I’m almost at 1,000 horses. Others followed my example with daily dinosaurs, apes, eyewear, cats, aliens, etc. and each of them had a similar learning experience. Comics are such an endless arena to play in and Comic Book Historians has few boundaries for learning and teaching. We’ve expanded the Comic Book Historians concept to include a podcast that Alex and I do, often with other guest co-hosts that alternate between interview episodes and ones focusing on one year in comics history. We recently spent four hours interviewing Tim Sale at WonderCon. It was a fantastic experience. None of this would have happened in my life if Alex hadn’t asked me to help with Comic Book Historians. San Diego just granted me professional status. It’s all very exciting.

Scoop: There is a wealth of information in the group, but have you thought about how that information will be managed long-term so people can access it? I know it is a long-term concern I have in my group.
JT: Yes, recent events have made me aware that this is not endless. That’s why we are starting to explore other options. But it’s such a great way to meet fellow scholars, historians, and smart comics fans. When I present at a conference that’s basically ephemeral too unless it turns into a published piece. Facebook won’t preserve work either but meanwhile it’s a bit of an “influence.” And we are there for each other. It’s so many things. I do worry about when the oil runs out, or the well goes dry.

Scoop: Would you mind elaborating a bit on what those recent events are?
JT: I am referring to Facebook security breaches, irresponsible and untruthful statements by Mark Zuckerberg, an exhaustion with the political divisiveness of social media, and the exploitation of it by some, all of that. I’ve had several friends walk away and not come back to Facebook.

Scoop: My biggest current issue is the great difficulty of members just finding stuff in the files (as I call past posts). This is exacerbated by the fact that most group members don’t want to do the work to find anything. So, all that information just sits on a server and is seldom seen again.
JT: Yes. It’s a minor measure, but I started a hashtag system for posts for easier reference. On some of my work, I would like to transfer it to a more permanent venue. We have played with our blog and with YouTube videos, but just running the group takes a lot of time. But a lot of posting for me is learning and which I keep. The sharing of it is a second benefit.

Scoop: And currently you are combining your law background with creator rights which must take up a lot of your time?
JT: It does, research wise. But to be clear, I’m doing this in a critical studies/historiography context. Not in terms as a counsel or for current advocacy. We did a panel on it last year at [Comic-Con International] and are scheduled to do another this year. It’s part of a larger project for me. It’d make a good dissertation, basically.

Scoop: Tell us a little bit about your findings so far.
JT: Well, one aspect is looking at various comic professional’s creation stories, and how they evolve over time and also how they correspond or conflict with co-creators. Then I crosscheck those moments with changes in the laws, or approaching timelines for ownership claims, etc. and often, if you listen to the creation accounts, they are very specific from a legal perspective. So sometimes, I am saying, when a creator’s statements are attributed to ego perhaps it is more of a legal stance supplied by attorneys or legal departments. A good example is how [Joe] Simon and Kirby each described their early work status at Timely. Simon was in the midst of litigation for Captain America at the time. Kirby was working at Marvel and his version/description was very beneficial to Marvel’s positions. Comic historians have tended to take creator statements and interviews as their own, and I’m suggesting that attorneys help shape these creation narratives.

Scoop: I think you provide an important perspective and that people tend to be closed minded about this topic. And that is not how good historical research and commentary should be carried out.
JT: There’s two ways to read Origins of Marvel Comics. One is as Stan [Lee] the credit hog egotist, but the second is based on corporate concerns and legal positioning. I think the latter needs more exploration.

Scoop: I have seen some memorable threads on creator rights in many different groups including yours. So I am going to be following your work on this as you release it.
JT: Yes, so far I’m doing this as a series of panels, which we do film and post on the Facebook group. But I do intend on writing this as more of a serious journal article. It’s the first time I ever combined all my hats at the same time as a lawyer, academic, and comic enthusiast.

Scoop: One thing I want to ask you about is what is your take on the current state of comic book scholarship?
JT: Ah, good question. The good news is that university presses are more open to publishing serious scholarship on comics than ever before. And well known marquee value professors like Scott Bukatman and Henry Jenkins are writing solid work on the subject. Scott’s Hellboy book for example. Cal State Northridge did a huge Kirby exhibit a few years ago, organized by Charles Hatfield. It was mind-blowing and was a great blend of professionals and academics talking on Kirby.

Scoop: Hatfield is a big name in comic research.
JT: I like his Kirby book a lot. He’s a serious scholar. What I also like is academia is reaching beyond standard texts. Bart Beatty did a book recently called Twelve-Cent Archie that explored that neglected area of comics history. That’s the positive side. There is a negative side.

Scoop: There is a definite schism between fan research and academic study. In the early days, fandom was the only place where any work was done. Today most scholars do not look at fan work at all. Is there still a place for the work in comic studies by the fans?
JT: There is a snobbishness factor within academia. Also an opportunism based on the popularity of the movies.

Scoop: Well, yeah, I didn’t want to use the word, but it is what I was thinking.
JT: There are scholars who love comics, like the ones I mentioned. But there are others who start at ground zero and they make the mistake of ignoring the solid research that more fan-based scholars have done over the years.

Scoop: Yes, without the fans the work of the scholars would have been a lot harder.
JT: The fan community in general also plays a role by the juvenile way some express reactions to scholarly work. I can’t blame academics for a level of snobbery when they get personally attacked. The smart scholars learn from what went before, while ignoring zealots and not judging fandom as one thing. For example Stan fans vs. Kirby fans. There is an anti-intellectual bent out there.

Scoop: Both good points. I have had many discussions with collectors and dealers over the future of the comic medium in general. Where do you see it say 10 years from now? Will there still be comics?
JT: Yes. There will always be comics. To me that’s like asking if there will always be music, always be literature, always be dance. Comics is a medium of artistic expression. But will there be comic stores? Will DC and Marvel still be publishing comics in house? Or will it be mostly online, web-based? I’d guess that there will be an increase in webcomics and something will break through greater than before. I also think there will be more album style comics similar to the BD model in Europe. But as to superhero books in comic stores it really is a precarious situation. There are so many bad tendencies and maybe most importantly the cost of a typical book is just cost prohibitive. Where I see the real growth market is in a different form of kid comics that being the youth market. The best comics I read this year were ones I picked up at the children’s bookstore. Things like the Prince and the Dressmaker, just fantastic stuff. And the Hilda books. But the short answer is, yeah, there will always be comics.

Scoop: The publishers have to get creative on how they get their books out to the public. I don’t think just relying on comic stores is a good long-term strategy. DC has done some good things in that line.
JT: Yes, you mean things like Walmart?

Scoop: I do.
JT: I don’t think retail comic stores as currently set up will be around in 10 years. I am also not sure book stores in general will be. But who knows? I would not have predicted the resurgence of vinyl either. I don’t see a major come back for them at all. Sunday comics should be a gateway drug for getting hooked on a daily paper. They are gone now.

Scoop: I was going to ask if they are a dying breed.
JT: Yes. I think so. I think webcomics eventually will be the only avenue for that, like the Kate Beaton model. She should be in a daily newspaper.

Scoop: But newspapers are still around, despite the predictions they would be gone by now.
JT: Yes, and they have ups and downs, and have changed greatly. But they haven’t disappeared and they still break major stories, especially in recent years. But what great strips have caught fire in recent years? What great political satires? What innovative artistic ones? I can’t bear to read newspaper comic strips today, everything seems derivative. Whereas go on the web and see what is being done there. I just don’t know if there will ever be another Calvin and Hobbes. I’d think that’s now more likely to be on TV as Steven Universe. Those syndicated strip guys once walked the earth as gods. On the plus side, it’s all in print.

Scoop: Finally, where do you see yourself in 10 years? Will you still be writing on comics?
JT: Yes, more than ever. History will still be there. Form will still be there. Writing about it, teaching it, interviewing people on it; those are all ways for me to be learning as well. It’s like a shark who is always moving, only it’s always learning at the same time. Otherwise you’re sunk.

Scoop: And with that Jim we want to thank you for taking a lot of time out of your schedule to sit down and have this talk.
JT: It’s been a total pleasure. Seriously, it really has.