Numlock Sunday: John Jackson Miller on the comic book shutdown

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition. Each week, I'll sit down with an author or a writer behind one of the stories covered in a previous weekday edition for a casual conversation about what they wrote.

This week, I spoke to John Jackson Miller, the author and archivist behind one of my favorite data resources, Comichron.

John’s work to maintain the historical record of the comics business is herculean, and his site — think of it like Elias Sports Bureau for comics — has a depth and history that’s been hugely helpful to me on several stories I’ve researched. I love talking to folks who maintain excellent public databases, and I’ve been itching for a chance to bring him on for a Sunday conversation for a while.

That chance came recently when the entire comic book industry shut down, something that’s never happened before. So much of what we’ve learned about the world lately comes down to nuance in the logistics of production cycles. The comic biz is somewhat notorious for …