West Virginia comic book author celebrates ‘Guy Gardner’ in new ‘Superman’ movie

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WOWK) — You may have heard of a little summer blockbuster named “Superman” coming out on July 11. For a local comic book writer and West Virginia native, his dream will be coming true when the film hits the big screen.

Dreams and imagination come to life at comic book shops, and that’s where 12 News’ Charleston affiliate, WOWK, spoke with Beau Smith, who’s a comic book writer from Huntington. It was a perfect setting to talk about what he says is his dream job after 40 years in the business.

“It was at an early time where my back was against the wall,” said Beau Smith, Guy Gardner comic book writer. “You can either keep working jobs that you just kind of like and are good at, but I wanted to do what my passion was.”

The infamous bowl haircut of Guy Gardner in DC Comics is hitting the big screen for “Superman” on July 11. Smith has been writing his stories for those 40 years mentioned, and shows his appreciation to all of the characters that he had the chance to write about.

“He was always known as the guy that got punched by Batman, the one punch joke,” Smith said. “He was a jerk, but I enjoyed that stuff. My goal was to make him likable. I didn’t want to lose the jerk part, but make him likable and surround himself with a cast of superheroes that will be his friends.”

When he writes about characters that he only could’ve dreamed about as a kid, Smith always makes sure to represent the city where he came from.

“I always try to include the Huntington area, Marshall University, everything as much as I can,” Smith said. “I wanted to always try to represent my area, which is comic books to me, with all the garage sales and drug stores that sold them as a kid.”

With the new movie coming out, he hopes it brings all kinds of people back to reading comics.

“I would hope that the ambassadorship that would be done would help people give us a shot,” Smith said. “All of us writers at four years old that were looking for comic books as kids.”