I came to the con feeling, this was basically my worst con last year for sales, and it basically felt like a waste of time being there. This year I brought a laptop, I brought a stack of Kirby monster reprints from the ‘70s, I brought paper and a ruler and pencils and pens in case I wanted to start drawing. I figured, if I just sat and drew or wrote for the entire two days, at least I’d get something done.
The first few hours were totally dead. Shockingly dead. No one was anywhere on the floor, and I’m not just talking the upper area tucked in back (where I was, for the second year in a row) that no one can see. I’m talking not even the lower level had any foot traffic.
TALKING TO INDIE ARTISTS
I spent a fair amount of time walking around and saying hello to all the indie artists I’m meeting and seeing at all the cons. Each convention, we befriend a few more people, who we sit by or near. And now I’m realizing I have so many people to go say hi to. It’s a lot of work. But I think it’s important to keep in touch and see how they’re doing and what they’re up to. A lot of them pop by the table and ask if I have anything new. Like they want to keep buying my stuff. It’s very rewarding knowing I’m beginning to build a fan-base of admirers, at least amongst the industry. Even though I still don’t sell many books, and there are just a few of these people out there. Even so, it helps me to fantasize that I’m a minor superstar of indie-books.
One person said they enjoy all the text I put in my comics. This is something I’ve often struggled with, because obviously I put way too much text in all my books. And I think it gets worse every issue.
Have you seen the Crumb documentary, where his brother drew comics as a kid, and each comic he did had more and more text, until finally there were just little tiny heads in the bottom corners of each panel, and eventually the drawings just disappeared? That’s my fear.
I have a friend who says my writing style reminds him of Ted Kosinski. I ramble and ramble and fill pages and pages with undecipherable nonsense.
On the one hand I feel like I could use an editor, but on the other, I kind of sickly enjoy putting so much text. I work and fret over every sentence, and realize it’s way too much, but want to say every little thing I squeeze in.
So at the con, this person who said he liked my text, he said it reminds him of Dave Simm’s Cerebus comic. I found that similarity interesting, because during my formative years, I loved Cerebus, and read all the text he included. At some point, in college, when I slowed down reading comics, I still enjoyed Cerebus and wanted to keep reading through them, but I knew what a commitment it would be, trying to get through all his text. Each issue would take me way too long to finish. I didn’t even necessarily agree with whatever he had to say. But for me, there was something about getting all the additional insights into his work. And perhaps more importantly, I really enjoyed how it helped me to know who this person was who was making this comic.
I told myself I could just not read all his text, but I couldn’t get myself to do that. I always feel like I have to read through something, and ingest all of it. I find I have to finish a novel I’ve started, even if I don’t enjoy it. I can’t turn a shitty movie off. It’s a perverse, maybe slightly neurotic (autistic?) problem I have. So isn’t it interesting that my love/hate of these kinds of text pages would develop and mutate in my own comics. And isn’t it interesting that someone is nurturing that sick habit of mine, and encouraging me to continue.
Someone asked about commissioning me to draw a monster again. I told him I’d recently done one for $100, and he said he’d pay me at least $125. Uh oh…Two requests for commissions in two conventions. Does this mean my rates are going to have to go up now?
It makes me think I should start bringing original art to conventions to sell.
This weekend, one self-publisher I see and say hi to all the time came over and actually looked at my stuff for the first time. I don’t think he realized that I have such a roster of pin-up artists. He looked dumbfounded flipping through my book. And then he realized I’d done a book with Sam Kieth. He got real quiet about it. Then he kind of timidly asked if I might ever do a pin-up for his book, and I told him I’m just so busy trying to do all my own projects right now, I just don’t have time. I feel sad, using the same excuses I’ve heard everyone say to me. Now I understand how they feel, and it’s nothing personal, but there just isn’t enough time in the days to get things done you’re passionate to be working on. Now I’m that guy who people are starting to ask. It’s flattering, but a little scary.
In addition to this newly-developing phenomenon (or perhaps it’s all a related phenomenon), a few artists once again asked if they could draw me a pin-up, and if I would publish it in my book. What I am learning to tell them, whether it’s polite enough or not, is that there are only so many pages in my books, and I have so many stories to tell, and I just don’t really have the room to publish pin-ups of anyone but my idols and people who personally influenced me. But I am doing a links page at my website, and I’d love if they would contribute something I could post there. And I would love it, and I’m loving it every time I got one in my emails. I think it’s gonna be a really cool links page.