Shropshire Magazine

Tim Quinn with a piece of Marvel art created for him by renowned comic-book artist Jesus Redondo

There have been several big-screen adaptations of the stories from the legendary Marvel comic books which have brought their characters to an even wider audience. Shirley Tart meets a Shrewsbury man who was once an editor with the comics giant, and listens with interest to his own tale.

In his time, Tim Quinn has woven some rip-roaring, scary tales. He’s had Spider-Man scaling rooftops and superheroes raising those tiny hairs at the back of the neck of a couple of generations across continents.

From a tiny tot, Tim has always been comic mad, has loved the spectacle, the plots, the goodies and the baddies and the cliffhanger tales. The chance to work in the world of comics was one of life’s unbelievable moments for the Liverpool-born, Shrewsbury-based entrepreneur. He has edited, scripted and illustrated, lived the adventures and worked with some of the best-known artists in the world. It is magical.

But the most magical, jaw-dropping part of it all, happened like this.

In 1986, a woman in Indianapolis called Jane advertised in Beatles Monthly for a holiday house exchange. Tim was hooked on that magazine as well, spotted the ad and on the impulse of it being a good idea, wrote to her. Jane wrote back and after about the third exchange of letters, she suggested to Tim that this was no longer anything to do with swapping houses.

She was right, they were smitten at a distance and Tim booked a ticket for Indianapolis.

A critical note here is that at the start of their whirlwind courtship, when Jane asked for a photograph, Tim sent her one of himself as an enchanting, curly-headed five-year-old reading a comic called Jack and the Beanstalk, and she was so taken with the snap that she framed it. Now let Tim take up the rest of this astonishing story.

A five-year-old with a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk which was to follow him across the Atlantic many years later

“Six months after we got in touch, I left the UK to live in Indianapolis and eventually to marry Jane,” he explains. “One day, we were walking past a comic bookshop and Jane suggested we went in to see whether they had a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk. I said that would be fun, I hadn’t seen one since 1959. They had three copies, one was in pristine condition and the other two were more tatty. We were pretty broke at the time so I bought the cheapest of the three for 60 cents.

“We took it home and I opened it over dinner – to find my own name written inside. Somehow, it had gone from Liverpool to Indianapolis – I have no idea how – and I had bought it.”

What a story. And I find myself moving my mug of tea to the other side of the room to avoid any accident with the precious comic where inside the front cover and below a joined-up-dot picture, there it is: the name ‘Tim Quinn’ written in pencil, in the careful hand of a five-year-old. That original picture sits alongside one taken around 1990, more than 30 years on, when Tim and Jane recreated the early moment by snapping a grown up Tim in the garden of his old Liverpool home – with the same slightly dog-eared comic in his hands.

Tim and Jane now live happily in a rambling, period house in Shrewsbury which they love and thoroughly enjoy. But of course they do not live alone.

Apart from adorable Henry, their aged and much loved dog, there are reminders everywhere of Tim’s career in the world of publicity and publishing, the many celebrities they know and have worked with and, of course, the comics which have been and still are so much a part of his life.

Tim says: “My interest in comics went back to before I could read. My older brother bought them and I would just look at the pictures and was in wonder at this way of telling the story.

“Even in the 1950s, comics had been around for 100 years. And they are still an amazing tool for encouraging children to read.”

But going down to the job centre and saying you want to work in comics is a tough call even now. Nearly 40 years ago, it would have drawn an even greater blank.

A selection of the publications to which Tim has contributed

As it did with the careers adviser in whom Tim confided. “When he asked what I was interested in, I told him I liked comic books, so he said ‘Ah, I think I’ve got just the job for you. John Lewis are looking for someone to put on the price tags.

Tim’s headmaster didn’t have a lot more faith in him, suggesting in the last week of term that he’d doubtless be off to work on the supermarket checkout come Monday. Our 16-year-old didn’t half bristle. “Actually,” he said, “I shall be working in publishing.”

Translated, that meant selling encyclopedias door to door, which he hated – but from which he got the satisfaction of knowing that he could do it.

Then came a door opening. On another of his many impulses, the young Tim Quinn walked into the Leeds City Variety Music Hall and asked for a job. Before he knew it, he was a stagehand, and over the next eight years worked his way up to stage manager.

“I also started writing scripts for various comedians including Little and Large and Jimmy Cricket,” continues Tim. “They also used to do a panto and someone had the bright idea of getting a load of comics for children who came up on to the stage. So they got in touch with publishers DC Thompson and suddenly we were getting boxes of them and I’m sitting in the wings reading comics again. There was Bunty, Beryl the Peril and so many others and I thought ‘I should be writing scripts for these’.’’

Quite a thought, but nothing ventured . . . so Tim did indeed write some scripts, sent them off and they were accepted. And so he became immersed into the Beano, Dandy, Topper, Bunty, Buster and so on. Comic annuals followed, working with artists which he loved, followed by newspaper strips including that famous glamour-puss Jane and hunk, Garth.

The legendary American Marvel Comics company arrived in his life when he started reading the work of a guy called Stan Lee who had created a new era of superhero comics like the The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, The Incredible Hulk and X-Men.

The strength of Lee’s scripts was that he showed his characters with superhuman abilities yet with the sort of human failings and emotions with which the reader could identify.

“They weren’t so po-faced as they’d been in the past,” says Tim. “When I began writing scripts, Marvel was out of the question, way out of my field. But they started a British comic book, I was doing well as a comic book writer and they asked if I could do something which would appeal to British humour. So I created I Was Adolph’s Double about a little guy called Winston Cohen who had Hitler’s face. It was very successful.”

Comics have long been able to get away with much which other media would not. Though while he does have a weakness for ‘naughty’ characters, Tim remains bewildered at once being accused of mass murder, copulation and general ‘comic smut’ in his work. I’ve seen the offending document and guess what? It’s just a comic!

When he first got together with Jane, Tim worked for the much respected Saturday Evening Post in Indianapolis. It had been founded in 1725 by Benjamin Franklin, and had seven magazines.

Almost immediately he was asked to write a book on Aids suitable for children. After the initial shock, he took the route of seeking celebrity support and the first person to call back was Yoko Ono.

She was followed by the likes of Jane Fonda and the weighty Los Angeles Times picked up the story. Swiftly, Tim found himself assistant editor and then an editor for Marvel Comics working between UK and New York.

He got their 50th birthday featured on Melvyn Bragg’s South Bank Show and when he sold the BBC the idea of a comic book series for radio, asked Queen’s Brian May if he’d do the theme tune – and he did.

We marvelled at the guitarist’s amazing performance on top of Buckingham Palace during Her Majesty’s golden jubilee celebrations and Tim reckons the idea just might have come from Spider-Man. Tim himself took Spiderman on a trip across the New York skyline. What a life he has had – indeed is still having.

Because apart from managing big names on the music and entertainment scene, Tim is now taking his years of comic expertise into Shropshire schools. As he says: “I want to bring the comic ideas into other areas and I’m going round schools showing kids how to make books and how to create their school magazine with the same ideas.”

Hence Meole Brace School now has a sharp and classy publication, Meole Mag, to show off.

Tim is going further than that and taking pupils to London to interview famous names for their magazines. He says: “They love it, of course. George Galloway was superb for instance; he took a good five hours to show them around and talk to them.”

Yes. But who fixed it for them? Not Jim this time. No, in true comic strip style, it was The Mighty Quinn who saved the day!

Tim Quinn during his time in New York took to the skyline with Spider-Man himself!