94. APE-CON: TALKING TO EDITORS

Day One, Continued, April 8 2006

Even though I assumed I wouldn’t make any money and would just be sitting around, I was kind of excited about coming to this convention. I was kind of excited about talking to publishers this week, since I had my humongous Doris Danger book to show them. Also, Larry at AIT-Planet Lar had emailed me that he read all the books I sent him, and wanted to talk to me about them at the con. Even though it was a sort of cryptic, mysterious message, of course it got my hopes up. I took the early morning while it was slow, and tried to pop by his booth. I met Larry, and he was very friendly, and seemed to like the book. I showed him a packet of newer material, and he took his time looking through all of it. He was positive. He said he liked the tabloid format, and said you could really tell how excited I was about the project, that the stories exuded that energy and fun.

I went by Fantagraphics and couldn’t find Gary Groth, who had been listed at the website to appear. As the weekend went on, I continually checked back, never asked where he was, and never saw him.

Back at my table, up walks JH Williams III, who I didn’t even know was coming to the con. He brought over a friend, and talked about my books to him, as though he was familiar with them and they were actually good books. He said how great the giant Doris book is, how he really liked the format. His friend noticed my flyer for the upcoming Lump trade, and Jim said, Yeah, that’s out in Previews now. It will be in stores in June. I’m impressed! I feel like I must be a real artist, if Jim Williams is bragging about and knows all the release dates of my books.

While we’re talking, along walks Chris Staros. “Chris!” I shout. He comes over and is very polite and friendly, and says hi to Elizabeth as if they’ve met (but I’m not sure if they have). I ask if he received my monster book in the mail, and he says he has, and the first thing he wanted to do was take it home and color in all the pages.

While he’s visiting with Elizabeth, who’s telling him we’ve got a baby coming, I ask Jim if he’s met Chris, and I realize they haven’t met. I find this interesting, because Jim was the one who had told me I should try Top Shelf, that he thought my stuff would be good at their company. He’d also told me about Alan Moore trying to get his “Lost Girls” published through them.

I introduce Chris, and Chris says, of course he knows who Jim is, as if he’s very aware of Jim and his work. And Jim says he had been meaning to speak with Chris, because he has a project in mind, that’s pretty out there, that he thinks would be a good book for Top Shelf. Right before my eyes, I’m watching deals in motion.

Jim said he’s going to start working on Detective Comics. What that means is he’s going to be doing Batman, the book that makes DC what it is. Chris made some cracks about how, well, Jim should keep applying himself in the industry, and maybe with hard work he could eventually work his way up and make a name for himself. He suggested Jim submit something to the Xeric Grant. Very funny, considering Jim’s last books have been with Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and now Batman.

Chris mentions the Lost Girls book, because it’s getting ready to be released. I talk with Chris about how I heard he could get in some trouble due to the controversial (hard-core porn) nature, and that it’s very bold to publish something you know could upset a lot of people. He said he’s going to try to send it out to a lot of big, important books and reviewers and magazines, like Playboy, and try to get some support behind the book, so that when it comes out, battle lines will be drawn, so to speak, and he’ll have that on his side. He said maybe he’ll be publishing it from behind bars.

At some point along the way, I get distracted by other people coming up to the table, and after returning and a pause, I gesture to my books and say to Chris, I don’t know if you would ever consider publishing something like this. And Chris says, No, I’ve honestly seen nothing like it. It’s an amazing book. And I say, Wow, thank you, and he makes some other hugely complimentary statements, and I say, Thank you. And then he says, yeah, what Alan Moore did…and continues talking about Lost Girls. So finally I realize, when he heard me say “consider publishing something like this,” he was still talking about Lost Girls, the whole time, and not my book. And I’m frantically back-tracking in my mind, wondering if he realized I thought he was talking about my book. I follow the conversation from there, and make sure I’m talking about Alan Moore’s book, and if he realized I thought we were talking about my stuff, he was flawless about politely covering it up. How humiliating…

While things were really hopping at our table, Larry popped by with (I assumed) his business colleague, and asked me to give his friend my pitch about my book. And I idiotically gestured, This is the greatest book ever! And no one laughed, and I wondered what the hell I was thinking to say that. So I went through my pitch, and he politely flipped through the pages and nodded with a pleasant not-quite-smile, but didn’t seem particularly interested or impressed. And I felt my enthusiasm for my book getting sapped out of me, and wondering if I had just blown my big chance to get my book under someone’s publishing banner. Because it was so busy at the table, the two of them kind of discreetly disappeared.

I learned the next day that this gentleman was Larry’s lawyer, and this lawyer also represented Mike Mignola, Darrick Robertson, and others. It sounds like he’s an important man to have met.