Day One, Continued Yet again April 8, 2006
Later in the day, I hear Daniel Clowes has been signing down at the Fantagraphics booth, so I run down to try and bug him for the third year in a row. While I’m waiting in his line, I see Matt Groening, just milling around. Amazing! What’s he doing here? He doesn’t live around here. He and Bongo Comics don’t come to APE. I thought I would never find or see him! I thought I’d never hunt him down. And he’s just hanging out here, by the Fantagraphics booth.
I walk up and get his attention, and he says hello, shakes my hand. I say I’m surprised to see him here, and doesn’t he live in Oregon, or Washington? No, L.A., he says, and starts to turn away. I ask if I can show him something, and he kind of reticently turns back, with an unsure, Okay…
I show him the book, and he’s like, Really?Wow, this is amazing.This is great, and he flips through it.I’m trying to make the pitch, and before he gets to the pin-ups, he begins to close the book and hand it back.I say, And did you see there are pin-ups by Mike Mignola, Sam Kieth, the Hernandez Brothers?And now I fatally realize he’s losing interest fast.He continues to say, Wow, that’s great.It’s really good, but he just doesn’t have the emotion behind his words that he had in the start, and he’s trying to get away now.I’ve run out of time.I’ve lost him.I do ask if he ever has time for commissions of this sort, and now he’s walking away.No, he’s really got way too much on his plate.He hands the book back, and I tell him he could keep it if he would like it, but he replies that he’ll just buy a copy at his local store.I realize later that means that he doesn’t want one, and that he isn’t planning to buy a copy, but it was a polite way to handle the situation.I thank him and get back in line for Daniel Clowes.
I’ve fantasized about getting a pin-up from Matt Groening for a long time.The first time I met him, and showed him copies of my Dick Ayers-inked monster stories (at San Diego), he seemed to think they were really impressive.Now I begin to wonder if he’s just really polite, and when people show him things, this is his way of being supportive.It certainly makes you feel good.
Matt did a Madman pin-up for Mike Allred, and he did a gorgeous cover for DC’s Bizarro World book, which was full of indie artists doing DC superhero stories. So I naively hoped he might be willing to do something like this. At least, now, I know he’s not interested, and I can stop fantasizing about it. That was my best shot. My monster book is the best I can do, to show people what I’m up to. If they’re not interested after seeing that, I’ve got nothing else.
Except, of course, that I’m still going to try to pursue a pin-up from Bill Morrison. And you never know. Maybe if I’m the nicest guy Bill’s ever met, he could put a good word in for me to Matt. Ah, how the brain never stops scheming, even after it’s defeated.
Daniel Clowes acted like he remembered my stuff, the moment I said I’m the guy who does the Kirby-style monsters. He flipped through the book, and said, with a slightly tickled, slightly dumbfounded tone, that it has to be the most eccentric project he’s ever seen. I reminded him I’d love to get a pin-up from him, and he laughed that he’d be sure to put it on the top of his list. His sarcasm wasn’t so caustic that I felt humiliated. He said Fantagraphics forwards any of his emails, and I could contact him through them. He said they write him every day. So I told him, oh, okay, I see, if that’s what you want, then I WILL write everyday. He laughed again, and we parted with him telling me to write him at least every four hours.
We spotted Mario Hernandez, and shouted out his name, and he came over with his daughter, and as usual, hung out for a nice long while. I asked if he would be sitting at the Fantagraphics booth this weekend, and he said probably not. He offered to do it, but Fantagraphics said, I assume kind of unenthusiastically, that they’d be happy to make space, but it wasn’t necessary. We asked if he would be at San Diego, and he said maybe not this year. I told him I hadn’t sent my monster book to his brothers, and he said he was planning to give them copies when he saw them. He said he’s had the book by his bed, and his daughter is starting to notice it and ask him, What’s this? So he showed her, but she hasn’t seen the original Kirby stuff yet. So voila, I pull out the stack of Kirby books I had brought, and she starts flipping through them, and laughing at the names of the monsters, and their tag lines. She really liked, “The thing from nowhere.” I’ve got to admit, it’s a good one.
Mario had emailed me almost a year ago about a secret project Gilbert was working on, and it was going to be a superhero book. And I was really excited about this at the time, and anxious to see it, so I asked Mario about the status. He said Gilbert has been really busy, because he’s doing a new Palomar book. But what’s interesting is that Jaime did a story for Gilbert’s superhero book, and he got so into it, that he’s put aside all his other work. Love and Rockets is like three months behind schedule, and Jaime can’t stop working on these superhero stories he’s been doing. God, I can’t WAIT to see what comes of this.
Mario noticed my Lump trade is on the way, and he seemed like he thought that was cool. I’ve always felt intimidated by the cool indie guys. Like my borderline-mainstream work isn’t as valid. I told him I’m kind of ashamed that I enjoy the private detective horror stuff, and he thought it was nonsense to feel that way. He said, you gotta do what you love. He didn’t care. He just loves comics. He’s flipping through the Doris Danger book while he’s telling me this, and he tells me he thinks Steve Rude’s pin-up is amazing.