Inspired by his father’s great love for pop culture, it’s no wonder Jim Beard became the passionate pulp and comic book fan he’s been for more than half a century now. He’s both the co-founder of Flinch Books and the founder of Becky Books, and has written official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comics, as well as licensed prose fiction of Kolchak the Night Stalker, the Green Hornet, Zorro, and the X-Files. With writer-editor Rich Handley, he co-created, co-edited, and contributed to Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone, the first ever POTA fiction anthology. Jim is also the creator of The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66 series, a three-volume look at the legendary Adam West show, and Flinch Books’ groundbreaking Sgt. Janus occult detective series.

In addition, Jim provided weekly content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, for seventeen years, and he’s been a regular columnist for 13thDimension.com and the now-defunct Toledo Free Press. Overall, he’s traveled down many varied paths to become the professional writer, editor, and publisher he strives to be.

John C. Bruening grew up in the 1970s on a steady diet of comic books, B movies, and stories of science fiction and adventure by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In later years, he took a deep dive into the crime fiction of Ed McBain and Robert B. Parker, and also dialed in to classic pulp fiction, old time radio adventures, and the cliffhanger serials of the 1930s and 40s. He likes to think of his pop culture sensibilities – inherited in large part from his father, a child of the Great Depression and World War II – as gloriously and irrevocably retro. John has been writing professionally since the 1980s, first as an award-winning journalist and later as a marketing specialist. He’s the author of the Midnight Guardian series, published by Flinch Books, and he has contributed short stories to various Flinch anthologies. His fiction and essays have also appeared in books by numerous other small press publishers, including Moonstone Books, Blue Planet Press, Becky Books, Stormgate Press and others.

He lives in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife Mariah (and sometimes their two kids live with them, when they’re not away at college and preparing to take on the world).

Maggie Ryel is a graphic designer by trade and art director by profession. She helps various companies and entities develop their brand by creating marketing strategies, logos, packaging, print collateral, websites, and other digital elements. Since Flinch Books’ inception, she has worked her cover design and interior page layout magic for almost every title in our catalog. Although admittedly not an avid reader, she enjoys the tactile aspect of books and especially prefers the thought and design that go into the cover elements. It’s safe to say she does judge a book by its cover, but she also recognizes that the content doesn’t always match the cover. What else would you expect from a graphic designer? In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family, camping with friends, and traveling. (Check out Maggie’s website to learn more about her work.)