It’s a busy time for Toledo Free Press Star writer Jim Beard.

Not only is his new book “Sgt. Janus: Spirit-Breaker” being released, but only three days after the June 16 book signing at Tony Packo’s, Beard will be presenting a discussion on a completely different kind of hero — a friendly, neighborhood wall-crawler.

Beard will host the “Spider-Man at 50” event for the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library ay 6:30 p.m. on June 19 in the McMaster Center at the Main Library, 325 N. Michigan St.

It will be the latest in a series of events Beard has helped the library put together to celebrate the anniversaries of famous superhero icons. Previous events honored the 70th birthdays of Superman and Batman.

“Those went so well for the library that they were just thrilled — especially for the Batman event, they filled that auditorium,” Beard said. “They were just blown away that that event would attract not just that many people, but that many enthusiastic people.”

After the success of the Batman event in 2009, other ideas were tossed about for upcoming anniversary events, such as Wonder Woman. But nothing really started to come together until Beard was reminded that the original appearance of Spider-Man was in 1962, 50 years ago.

“We all decided that Spider-Man was yet another one of these characters that is almost universally known. Maybe not as much as Superman and Batman, but as soon as Spider-Man was said, everybody lit up and said, ‘Perfect!’” Beard said.

The event will feature a PowerPoint history of the character, as well as a live video chat with one of the actual writers of Spidey from Marvel Comics.

“Everybody who comes to these is just so into it, and I think Spider-Man is going to be even more with that feeling going through the room. People like Superman, people like Batman, but I think people are just going to go nuts about Spider-Man,” Beard said.

For more information, visit toledolibrary.org or call (419) 259-5200.

Tags: Jim Beard, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Comics.
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