The Ted McKeever Library:
Q&A with Shadowline publisher
Jim Valentino
October 1 saw the release of Transit, the first in Shadowline’s three-volume Ted McKeever Library, which will eventually also include Eddy Current and Metropol. Shadowline publisher Jim Valentino took the time to visit with Doomkopf.com about the origins of the McKeever library, some of the thought behind the project and the possibility of future volumes.
DOOMKOPF: The long-unpublished conclusion to Transit is clearly one of the selling points of the library’s first volume. McKeever described Transit as his “Holy Grail” in the Shadowline press release, but how much of that conclusion had he worked on since 1988? Had the sixth issue of Transit been worked on before Vortex went out of business, did McKeever work on it at some point in the past 20 years, or was this something he created solely and entirely for the library?
VALENTINO: My understanding is that the finale was plotted out, but never finished — that is, never written and drawn before now. And the pages are simply wonderful. They show Ted’s evolution as an artist far more eloquently than I’m able to tell.
DOOMKOPF: McKeever had what some would call the luxury of creating a missing piece in his larger mythology after the subsequent chapters had already been written. Do you think that made it easier or more difficult to complete, and why?
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