Fox TV’s 24 has had an existence almost as tumultuous as that of its main character, Federal agent Jack Bauer. He’s taken down terrorists, drug dealers, and mass murderers. He’s been devoted to several presidents and equally devoted to getting rid of another. He’s seen good friends die, turn traitor or just get fed up with bureaucratic channels and walk away from the cause they served. He’s been tortured, shot, electrocuted, and left to die. He can deal with everything the writers throw at him; it’s the real world stuff that trips him up.

An action adventure series centered around a ticking clock and decidedly unvarnished terrorist plots (assassinating a presidential candidate in one, nuking Los Angeles in another, releasing bio-warfare materials in yet another), the debut of the series was delayed for weeks by the events of September 11, 2001.

More recently, the series suffered a setback because of the 2007-2008 strike by the Writers Guild of America against producers and studios. The impact on a show like 24 was perhaps more severe than for other types of dramas because of the time factor; each of the 24 episodes in a season makes up one hour of Jack Bauer’s day, and Fox’s decision beginning with season four was to run the episodes consecutively without breaks for reruns. When the strike hit, they hadn’t even reached the halfway point in filming season seven, so it is officially on hold until January 2009.

With a serious core of devoted fans, 24 had been a critical hit for Fox since it debuted, but once they embraced the no reruns schedule at the start of season four, the ratings exploded. Even before that, novels and graphic novels were in the pipeline and began to appear. Huge numbers of fans also discovered the show through the DVDs.

Now, with new episodes still more than nine months away, fans of the show find themselves hungry for more. As comic book scribe Beau Smith sees it, this creates a huge opportunity for the licensed products associated with the show.

Smith said he’s spending his time waiting for 24’s return by thinking up more ideas for more 24 stand-alone stories. He’s telling people about the trade paperbacks (24 and 24: Nightfall) which collect the one-shots and mini-series released in comic book form by IDW Publishing.

And he’s telling them about 24: Cold Warriors, his own latest efforts.

The story features Bauer and Chloe O’Brian, a fan favorite supporting character, who are stranded by circumstances at an Alaskan communications station during a blizzard. They uncover a plot by terrorists to interrupt all wireless communications in the U.S., and to further complicate matters, the terrorists are led by a female Russian agent from Jack’s past.

Fans of the show’s legendary tight continuity may place the story between season four and season five, but Smith said he made a point not to have it pinned down to a certain time so that non-traditional 24 readers wouldn’t be bogged down with continuity.

For his part, Smith has been a fan of 24 from the start. A veteran marketing guru for Image Comics, McFarlane Productions, IDW Publishing, and Eclipse Comics as well as a writer, he said he hasn’t missed an episode yet.

“I’ve always enjoyed the fact that they were trying something very different with the format, yet having a traditional type of good guy story encased in it,” he said. “So many TV shows, and comics for that matter, wait to see what someone else is doing before they’re brave enough to stick their toe into the water. The folks with 24 had the creative courage to use non-traditional molds. They did it by using the best of traditional character driven stories and trimming the fat.”

He’s quick to point out that his appreciation of the series is far in excess of his original expectations for it.

“Before seeing the first episode, I thought it was going to be yet another liberal Hollywood take on the action/thriller. By that I mean always making the government and military the shady bad guys. Once I got into about six episodes I was happy to see that the show isn’t really slanted to either the right or the left. It’s about what’s right and wrong in the eyes of the eyes and points of view of the characters they’ve created,” he said.

It wasn’t long into the series, he said, before he started getting ideas of the trials and tribulations to which he might subject Jack Bauer.

“I’m very guilty of that with everything I watch or read. As a writer you always have these little side paths that you’d take the stories and characters if you were writing them. It’s like having your own director’s cut in your head. I’ve got some writer friends that say thinking like this ruins some entertainment for them, but for me it only enhances it. I think that’s why I enjoy working with editors and artists so much. You get that creative team thing going and some of the best ideas in the world pop out from that,” he said.

In a nation that is split pretty evenly politically, the action-charged drama of 24 pulls fans from both sides of the aisle, with noted liberals like Barbara Streisand and conservatives like Rush Limbaugh among its devoted audience. Smith said he believes it’s the core of Bauer’s character that plays a major role in making the show so compelling.

“I like the way Fox made Jack Bauer a hero character that has a strong core of what’s right and wrong and is willing to do what it takes to see that good comes out on top of evil. Jack Bauer doesn’t waste time with remorse and red tape. He gets from point A to point B in the most efficient manner even though all those around him throw up entangled road blocks at every turn. Jack isn’t a soul-less killing machine, he has issues and regrets, but he deals with them in private and not on an episode of Oprah jumping on a couch or crying with Dr. Phil. Jack Bauer is an example of a person working hard and staying strong to overcome family issues, personal tragedy, co-worker deceit, and terrorists with guns pointing at you,” he said. “Jack Bauer isn’t a physical cookie cutter of an action hero either. There are no Stallone biceps, no Will Smith chin-ups, or Matrix wires attached to his back. Bauer is like a Jack Russell terrier in human form that has been given a world full of rats to clean up. I think that even if Jack Bauer had a “normal” job, say building houses or selling insurance, he would be the same person and the kind of employee that you’d want on your payroll. Bauer sees the completion of the job as his goal without losing sight of quality or integrity that’s needed to get there.”

Smith also said that regardless of whether it’s the actual show, comic books or the novels, the pacing of 24 is also a key factor. It’s not a novel in which one has time for characters to sit around a table and exchange cute dialogue.

“The characters are a perfect example of moving a compelling story forward through action with dialogue. Like a lot of comic book writers today, some think that to show you’re a good writer you have to have monster blocks of text and dialogue to tell the story. I disagree. Comics are words and pictures. They have to move and they have to take the reader and the story with them,” he said. “The TV show 24 is an almost perfect example of how to write a good comic book story. If writers want huge amounts of dialogue and narrative then they need to be writing novels and films, not comics.”

For 24: Cold Warriors, Smith said the idea grabbed him quickly.

“The idea hit me while watching 24 and getting sidetracked in my head of scenes and situations that I as a viewer would like to see the characters. This just happened to be one of those times when we were having a winter storm in my area and the Internet was out. Within two seconds I thought: Terrorists take down the internet, Jack Bauer and Chloe out of L.A. in the snow, no gadgets, old school fighting, a female Jack Bauer, and there was the seed of my story. It’s not the way every writer does things, but it works for me,” he said.

Because of his desire to see the characters outside of the Los Angeles area and CTU’s office there, Smith said he limited his use of the familiar supporting cast.

“I used Chloe O’Brian because she is the hands down favorite supporting character on the show. She says and thinks all the stuff we do, she just has the nerve and lack of tact to say ‘em. I also wanted to show her out of her element and remind 24 fans that she is quite capable of taking care of things. I also wanted to show a little of why she admires and bonds with Jack Bauer so much. Where she isn’t afraid of saying what’s on her mind, Jack isn’t afraid to do what’s on his mind,” he said. “I also used Bill Buchanan. Bill is one of my personal favorites on the show. I think there is a lot more to him than we’ve been shown and I wanted to open up a little of his past and what drives him. In 24: Cold Warriors, we see a peek of what past he and Jack Bauer share. In this adventure, Chloe plays the part of us, the viewers and gets that look into something from Bill and Jack’s past. This was something I did for the long time fans of 24. I wanted to give them something new that they didn’t know.”

Also from Beau Smith:
In addition to 24: Cold Warriors, which is slated to reach stores March 5, 2007. At about the same time his book, No Guts, No Glory: How To Market Yourself In Comics comes out from Blue Line Pro. Just a few weeks ago, Moonstone Books released the prose anthology Werewolves: Dead Moon Rising, which features one of his short stories. Later this year, IDW Publishing will release both Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars, which brings back one of Smith’s own characters for a four-issue mini-series, and a new creator-owned series called Lost & Found. He is also currently working on a screenplay for Parts Unknown, based on his comic book series.

Also featuring 24:
Toy Collector Magazine’s January 2008 issue featured a look at the number of different toys available featuring Jack Bauer and his compatriots.