Every now and then, I would be at a comics shop or local Sacramento Comic-Con, and see a flier for Super Con. I’d been to it a few times in Oakland, just to go through comics bins, and now I saw a flier for a new venue. I thought this was a pretty small convention, but I was excited to see Ryan Sook and John Romita Jr. would be there. I was also interested to check in with Bill Morrison again, since I’d met him at a local Sac-Con.
I got to the con, and it was in a pretty small hall. Felt like a gym, actually. John Romita Jr. had a huge line, so I found Ryan Sook. I’d just read his Arkham Asylums, which I really enjoyed. I told him so, and he was appreciative. I asked if he was doing sketches, and he said he’d do one for me. I told him to draw anyone he liked, and he said he enjoyed drawing the Egghead from Arkham Asylum, and it was a nice sketch, but I wondered why I didn’t just ask for Batman or the Joker. Let that be a lesson, fans: If there’s someone you’d like a sketch of, don’t say, “Draw whatever you want.” Just ask, or else you won’t get it.
I showed Ryan copies of my Dick Ayers-inked Kirby-style monster stuff, and he got a kick out of them. I offered to give him copies. By this time I had maybe half a dozen pin-ups to show off as well (Mike Allred, Thomas Yeates, Gene Colan, Sam Kieth, Irwin Hasen, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mario and Gilbert Hernandez), and he was impressed with who I had so far. I was feeling pretty good about it myself.
Sitting with Ryan was Mick Gray, and Mick was really friendly too. He also got a kick out of the monster stories, and was impressed with the pin-ups. I found myself going and hanging out with them, throughout the con, whenever I ran out of things to do.
I told them how the last stories Dick had inked for me (particularly the second story, “Terror Lurks Deep in the Heart of Africa”), I was surprised what a thin line Dick had used. I had penciled with thin lines, but assumed Dick would go in with a nice fat brush and bulk things up. It made me realize that often, comics foreground and background isn’t delineated with line quality, to the degree I thought. Color has more of an effect on depth than I realized. This was interesting to me, since I’d only seen my own work in black-and-white, and began visualizing it in this way, and using line-qualities accordingly. But I hadn’t necessarily communicated this to Dick. So now, as I was working on the pencils for my fourth Doris Danger story, I told Mick I had begun drawing really thick lines in pencil, so that Dick would know exactly how I wanted the lines drawn.
Mick said he thought this was essential as a penciller. He said if he doesn’t talk to the penciller, all he has to go on, for getting the art done right, is the penciling he sees. If the pencils give directions, then he can make it work accordingly.
This discussion led me to pencil more specifically than I’d yet done for Dick’s pages. When I sent them, I also included a note that I hoped he could use lots of nice thick brush-lines, to give it a real retro, authentic 1960’s feel. When I got these pages back from Dick, he included a note with it. He said that when he inked the King, Stan would tell him to be sure and make the work jump out. To emphasize it. Then he said my pages really shined this time, and that he practically just had to trace them. He said he just wants to make my work a little more dynamic. What a rewarding note! See how you learn as you go!
The John Romita Jr. line never died down, so I finally got in it and waited. It moved really slowly, but everyone in line was saying, it’s worth it, because he’s giving free sketches to everyone. We watched a lot of people coming out of line with Spider-Man sketches, and wondered if he was just doing Spider-Man only, but it turned out he’d do a sketch of anything you wanted. For whatever reason, everyone wanted a Spider-Man sketch, which I thought was kind of funny, because he would just do a head shot, and it seems to me you can’t really do so much with a Spider-Man head shot, you know? It’s just the shape of a head with some web-lines on it. If you ask ten artists to draw a Spider-Man head shot, they’ll all look basically the same, won’t they? It’s like asking for an Iron Man head shot. Anyways, that’s what I thought.
I wanted a Hobgoblin sketch. I assume he created or co-created the character, since that first appearance was under his name. I thought that would be really special.
As I got close enough to hear him talking with other fans, and interact with him, I heard him talking about a new book he was going to be doing for Image. I later saw it advertised for promotion at San Diego’s Comic-Con.
I began trying to visit before him before I reached the front of the line, since there were often dead periods where he was just sketching. I joked that people in line just wanted a sketch of Galactus fighting the Fantastic Four and the Avengers.
One kid brought his portfolio and asked Mr. Romita Jr. what he thought. John didn’t go into a lot of detail, but was supportive. He said it looked great, but pointed out, “unless you’re going for realism, because obviously this stuff isn’t realistic.” I couldn’t read from the kid if he was going for realism or not. I had been thinking to myself, This kid’s art is not the “Marvel Way.”
I heard someone ask him how much time he spends on a page. John said eight hours, then qualified that he can go longer, so it’s not uncommon to go ten or twelve hours a page. But at least eight. He said he drinks a lot of water, to force himself to get up periodically. The kid asked what his page rate is, and he didn’t answer, except by repeating, “What’s my PAGE RATE??!” When the kid left, he kind of rolled his eyes to the rest of us in line, to say, “What’s my PAGE RATE??” again.
I finally got to the front of the line, and asked if he could sign a couple books and do a sketch. He signed the comics and waited to hear what I wanted a sketch of. I tried to kind of show him my monster book and ask him about doing a pin-up. I opened by saying I’ve got kind of a tricky one for him, and he looked like he didn’t want a tricky one. He said, “Uh oh,” like he didn’t like the sound of this. “Don’t say tricky,” he said. “I don’t like tricky.” I showed him the Dick Ayers-inked pages, and explained I’d like a pin-up of a giant monster, and told him he could draw something in any style, in any setting, and I showed him some of the other artists. I told him, So it would just be a giant monster. It can look any way you want, it just has to be big.
So he was sitting there and listening very intently this whole time. When I was through, he said,”Okay, I understand. Just don’t say tricky. This I can do.”
He started drawing my sketch, and I asked him about getting contact info from him, and at first he started to give me his wife’s email, but then he thought twice about it, and said just go to the Spider-Man message board. I asked if he looked there and read everything, and he said, Oh yeah, he would definitely get any messages I posted there. And so in trying to describe what I had in mind for the pin-up, and trying to fill the otherwise empty space while I waited for my sketch, I was re-telling him what I had in mind for the pin-up. That it could be any giant monster, as long as it’s big. He seemed to me as if I confused him, and he didn’t know what to make of me. I felt as if I was one of those annoying freaks that the artists are polite to, but whom they would like to leave them alone.
He handed me the sketch, and said, “How’s that? It’s a monster.” I thanked him, and moved on.
As I left I realized two things:
One. I didn’t ever ask him for a sketch of Hobgoblin. I just asked for a sketch, and then I started showing him my giant monster work, so he thought I was asking him for a sketch of a giant monster.
Two. Because he thought the whole time I was talking about the sketch he was working on, and didn’t make myself clear, he misunderstood when I was asking for his contact info. He completely missed that I was trying to commission him for a pin-up. So as a result of my inability to communicate my desires:
One. I wound up without the sketch of Hobgoblin that I wanted, and
Two. I had no way to contact him about the pin-up I wanted.
This business of trying to contact him by message board, I knew, wouldn’t work. It would mean posting a note amongst all the Spider-fans, who would be asking questions about which villains Spidey could beat up, and what issue did this happen, and who has the cooler costume, and how they found a continuity error that they couldn’t believe. I didn’t plan to leave my email there and try to explain what I was doing again, so I knew I was out of luck for trying to get a pin-up from John Romita Jr.
Kind of frustrating.
Overall, I had an all right time at the con, quiet though it was. I really enjoyed Mick and Ryan, and even had a chance to talk with Bill Morrison a bit, who was friendly as always, drawing portraits of fans in the Simpsons style. What fun that is!