This year, I had a full issue of “Tabloia,” not printed, but in Xerox-form, to show around. It contained the first chapters of The Lump, Dick Hammer, Dr. DeBunko, and Doris Danger. I also had an additional couple of Doris Danger, Dick Hammer, and Dr. DeBunko stories. As a game plan this year, I decided to make the Doris Danger stories my feature to share with artists. I thought that would be easiest to pitch quickly, and thought they might enjoy them better than my other junk.
I immediately stumbled onto Eddie Campbell, and flipped through his original art. I told him about showing him my art the year before. The previous year, he had told me he’d definitely remember me, because my art had a unique style, but he didn’t remember me. I told him he’d published a letter I sent him in his EgoMania comic (issue #2, featuring an interview of Alan Moore), and he didn’t remember the letter. I showed him my Dick Ayers-inked monster stories, and he was amused, but had no interest in doing a pin-up. I didn’t expect he would, because I’d asked him about doing a pin-up the year before, and he wasn’t interested then.
He complained about the coloring style on current comics, he thought it was all too dark. He opened up an X-Men comic he’d done a story, and he was so upset because it was supposed to be a snow scene, and all the snow was blue or dark purple. I just thought it was so cool Marvel and DC were hiring all these cool indie artists to do all these mainstream superhero books, I didn’t care about the quality of the coloring.
Eddie told me he’s just been hired by DC to do a Batman book, but very few people, other than Frank Miller, are allowed to write AND draw a book. For some reason, DC chooses to hire different people for each task. Eddie was told, if he wanted to write AND draw, he would have to become a corporation unto himself. So to write and draw this Batman story, he became Eddie Campbell Inc. He said all it required was some paperwork, which fills a box under his bed.
Eddie told me he negotiated a price with DC for him to write and draw this story, but then what he said he’s going to do, to assure he likes the coloring. He’s going to submit full color, painted pages to DC. I think that’s pretty hilarious, that’s he’s spending all this extra time and effort doing a painted book, when he only got paid to do pencils and inks or whatever. And to do it out of sheer hatred for the current coloring style!
Elizabeth and I waited in line for hours, and got to meet Frank Miller AND Neil Gaiman at the same time. I gave both of them packets, containing my full issue of Tabloia. Who knows if they read them, glanced through them, or just left them at the signing table. I never heard from either of them, and began to realize, once this convention was over, that there doesn’t seem to be much point in giving writers copies, unless they actually ask for them, which I don’t think they ever do.
I had brought a Sandman #1 for Neil to sign. It had, I thought, signatures by Sam Kieth and Alan Dringenberg. Turns out, the signature that looked like “Sam Kieth” actually said “Neil Gaiman.” Neil was kind enough to sign it a second time, then draw an arrow to the first signature, to show what it was supposed to say.
I told Frank I really appreciated him keeping film noir in comics. He gave me a sly smile and said, “I’m just getting started.”
Tim Bradstreet was in artists alley again. I showed him my monster pages, and he thought they were fun. I couldn’t believe it; I asked about a pin-up commission, and he just wrote his email on my notebook for me.
Tim Sale was in artists alley too, and he seemed to like the monster stuff. I told him I knew he was exclusive with DC, but he said he should still be able to do a monster pin-up, if he could only find time. He gave me his email too.
I found the Hernandez Brothers. After my pitch, they all said maybe they would do a pin-up. I can’t believe it!
So now I’m beginning to realize the power of having Dick Ayers inking the monster stories. I’m watching the artists as I make my pitch. “Hi, I was hoping I could show you a project I’m working on. I’m drawing Kirby-style giant monster stories.” Usually they don’t look up, and they’re busy with something on their table, or talking to someone behind the table. “I actually managed to get Dick Ayers to ink them for me.” Really? They perk up. All of a sudden they’re actually looking at the artwork now. Amazing. What a powerful tool. All of a sudden, maybe they wouldn’t mind thinking about doing a pin-up. Even though I approached a bunch of these exact same artists the year before, and none of them had been interested then. All of a sudden I’m getting their contact information.
An original art dealer represents Michael Lark and Tim Bradstreet, and I see both of them over at this booth. I had found Michael Lark’s email online, and had written him a few times. I absolutely loved his sideways-format “Batman Nine Lives” book. I just thought it was gorgeous. He wrote me back a little about film noir. I had sent a few emails asking about a pin-up from him, but he wasn’t interested, and mentioned he was exclusive for DC now. I wondered if I’d gotten on his nerves with my perhaps-too-pushy-emails. I always feel anxiety when I send out emails and don’t hear back. Did I say something offensive? Are they mad at me?
Meeting him at the convention, I told him I was the guy who bugged him about a commission, and he said, Oh, You’re THAT guy. It made me wonder if I HAD done something that got on his nerves, but I was sure to be very friendly, and I didn’t seem to get on his nerves in person.
He said it wasn’t so much that he was exclusive as that he just didn’t have time to do a pin-up. I showed him the monster stories, and he asked for copies. After the con, he emailed me what a hoot he thought my stories were. He said I had a pretty crazy sense of humor.
Over at his booth, Tim Bradstreet said, “Oh, I want to go talk to Alex Maleev,” and sure enough, there was Alex Maleev a few booths down. I went over, and he was drawing sketches. I tried to show him my monster stuff and ask about a pin-up, and he said to talk to his manager. His manager was running around, so I waited for a few minutes. Finally his manager came up to me and said, You want a sketch? I said sure. Of what? How about Daredevil. He said, a hundred bucks. So I tried to make my pitch about the monster book, and might Alex do a pin-up for me, and the guy said to send him an email. I tried contacting him a few times, but never heard back.
I found Neal Adams. He said that since he’s got a whole studio of artists working for him, his pin-up would be too expensive for me to afford a pin-up. However, he said sometimes…sometimes…they’ll do something small for a project like this, and I should contact his son. He sent me on my way, and told me to say hi to Dick. I wouldn’t find out until years later, when I read about it in Dick’s autobiography, that Neal basically got Dick work at DC, when Dick had been basically blacklisted by the industry, on account of feeling he should be paid by Marvel when Marvel reprinted his work. This was in the seventies. Marvel had cut back the amount of work they gave Dick, and therefore they cut back what they were paying him, because he was paid by the page. Then they reprinted old stories Dick had drawn, and didn’t pay royalties for republishing rights. What an industry – to your job (a la page quantities per month) to – yourself (via reprints of your old work)!
I found Berni Wrightson, who was laughing loudly at all my Kirby-style stories. He was reading the dialogue out loud and laughing. When I asked about contributing a pin-up, he said, he didn’t do that kind of work. I kind of expected as much, but was so excited that he enjoyed them, I didn’t care.
We sat briefly in on a Grant Morrison panel. It was a huge room and packed. He was going to be finishing up his X-Men run, and signing a new exclusive with DC. He said it was in his contract that he would do some mainstream books for them, but they would guarantee him a certain number of personal, non-superhero,(bound-to-be-less popular) books as well. He was asked about artists he’d like to work with in the future, and he listed JH Williams. We did hang around near Grant for a while after, where he kindly stood and spoke to everyone who waited. When I got to the front of his line, I showed him my monster stories, and gracious as ever, he took a copy and thanked me. He signed a hardcover of his Batman Arkham Asylum.
Then I immediately rushed downstairs to JH Williams to tell him that Grant announced he wanted to work with him! JH wasn’t aware, and kind of went, “Really?” I thought that was high praise indeed.
We went to a Dave McKean talk, where he kind of made fun of superhero comics, specifically in reference to the Batman Arkham book. The usual “people don’t do this” sort of argument. We later found the booth he was hanging out at, and I (embarrassed after his superhero panning) got him to sign the same book – and he even drew a quick Batman sketch. He looked over my monster stories. He laughed (or winced?) at the “Eiffel Terror” gag of the Paris story. Said he wasn’t interested in doing any kind of monster pin-up, even a quick sketch.
I was really intimidated to meet Michael Kaluta. It seemed like he had long lines the whole week, but then one day I walked over and he was just there by himself. He was so good at putting a nervous little comics nerd at ease. So friendly and funny. And I got his contact info.
We went to the Bongo Comics booth to find out about Matt Groening’s signing. They had a mob scene of people, waiting to be handed tickets for the signing. People were shouting and pushing, and then security had to come and funnel people around. Somehow I wound up in the flow of traffic, and got spit out of the booth with a ticket in my hand. The funny thing was, as we left the booth, there was Matt Groening, so we went up to him and snapped a picture with him. Elizabeth talked with him about how crazy the scene was. And he seemed really shocked and humble that everyone would want to get his autograph so badly.
These were some of the quick, fly-by-night, catch-a-glimpse exchanges at the con. Next time, I’ll talk about a couple bigger, more in-depth ones.