I had been pretty regularly bugging Ryan Sook over the last few years to see when he would be going to San Diego, and year after year, he’d say he just doesn’t go to that con, because it’s too expensive, and too far away. He told me the only cons he goes to are Wondercon and the Supercon in Oakland. Both of which are relatively “local” for him, in the grander scheme of things.
So imagine my surprise when I heard from a mutual friend that he was down this year! On the first night, as so often happens at this immense convention, I was sitting at the booth, and I just happened to see him standing nearby. I went running out to intercept him, and sure enough, it turns out that Adam Hughes, who he met at Supercon, was able to get him a booth in artist’s alley, sitting between Adam and Bernie Wrightson, in the same row as Tim Bradstreet. Talk about getting set up in the power aisle!
I told him Elizabeth and I really wanted to spend some time with him, and he seemed up for it, and we decided to go get sushi one night. He hadn’t really had much experience with sushi, but we knew a place that was decent in quality, but amazingly cheap for sushi.
At the end of the convention, he met me at my table, and we walked to the sushi restaurant together. My wife was meeting us there with Matt Silady. She told me the street cross-sections, and Ryan and I began heading the direction we thought it was. Then Ryan figured out we were going the wrong way, and we headed back the four or five blocks we’d gotten off track. Then Elizabeth called us back, and said she’d gotten the address wrong, and we headed back the four or five blocks we’d just come from.
We had plenty of opportunity to visit during all this walking. He was talking about how he charges so little for his convention sketches, compared to what a lot of people were charging, but he just doesn’t feel comfortable charging more. He said that sometimes, you do a sketch, and it just doesn’t turn out as good as you’d like it to, and he feels that the inexpensive amount he’s charging is fair, in case of eventualities such as this. I asked him if he’d ever looked on ebay the day after the cons, and he said he knew exactly how much his sketches were selling for. Just a year before, he wasn’t charging for them at all, so it was a big deal to him that he was charging the tiny amount he was charging, as it was. We talked about how his name is worth a dollar amount now. We talked about not underpaying himself for his talent. Finally we discussed him maybe having a secret code-word for all his die-hard fans of many years bygone, and how if they use the code-word, he’ll charge them less, but he’ll have a regular charging amount that is more. I don’t know what he’s going to decide to do.
I was telling him about my experiences with Steranko, and with Simon Bisley. He said Mike Mignola had a fun Simon Bisley story, which I have to share. Mike had never really talked to Simon much, but one night, got a call from him, at I think around eleven at night. Mike has a kid, and is usually sound asleep by this time, but just happened to be up that particular night. He said, Hello?
On the other line, with his British accent: Mike?
Yeah.
“This is Simon Bisley.”
An uncomfortable pause, as Mike is wondering why Simon is calling.
Simon: What time is it there? (Mike lives in New York. Simon lives in the UK.)
Mike: It’s 11 pm.
Simon: Well, okay. Thanks.
And that was the phone call.
Good ‘ol Simon.
Later, I saw Mike Mignola, and said we should swap Simon Bisley stories. Mike said, he didn’t have any, except that Simon called him in the middle of the night once, and asked what time it was. I said to Mike, “Well, all right then,” because I was trying to mimic Simon’s response, but then Mike and I had an uncomfortable silence, as I suspect Mike thought I was telling him that this was the end of our conversation.
As we spent more time with Ryan that night for dinner, he kept slipping out interesting things that I never would have guessed about him. We knew he was religious, but he said he was a pastor at his church. He said he used to smoke when he was younger. He used to work in construction, doing serious manual labor. He used to be a drummer in a band, and opened up for Hole! And he and his wife were high school sweethearts. What an interesting guy. We had a blast with him! We told him we would love to come visit him at his home on the coast (he invited us way back at Supercon), and he again offered his warm invite. If only we can find a way to make it the five hour drive, with a little one on the way.