MY BEST FRIEND, MIKE MIGNOLA
“The penultimate Kirby-style giant monster comic.” – Mike Mignola
(“I don’t believe I’ve ever actually used the word “penultimate” but it makes for a good quote.”) – Mike Mignola
This photo is of Mike and I sitting at side-by-side tables, at San Francisco’s Wondercon 2008. Doesn’t Mike look like he’s thinking, “Great, they sat me next to THIS guy.” And I’M thinking, “Wow, it’s great to be best friends with Mike!”
For a few years, I thought Mike Mignola was of a celebrity stature that he would have hours-long lines and be very difficult to hunt down. When I saw him at Comic-Con, at Darkhorse’s booth signing, that’s what it always looked like. THEN I realized he just went there for an hour, then he went back to his own booth, where he sat the rest of the day. So he’d always been approachable – he had just been approachable in SECRET.
When I learned this (in 2003), I headed straight to his table showed him the photocopies of my Doris Danger stuff, and he took a copy, but didn’t really look over it.
In 2004, I had just published my first issue of Tabloia (containing the first Doris Danger story), and I had a stack of photo-copies of not-yet-published Dick Ayers inked Doris Danger pages and pin-ups of giant monsters that I had so far commissioned from other artists. At Comic Con in San Diego again, he was basically my first stop. I waited in a moderate line, then quickly showed him a binder with the copies of all my Ayers-inked monster stories, followed by all the pin-ups I’d amassed by then. As he flipped through, I could tell he was impressed with my roll call. Mike Allred, Thomas Yeates, Gene Colan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Sam Kieth, Irwin Hasen, the Hernandez Brothers (but I hadn’t received Jaime’s yet), Ryan Sook (who I’d asked to please butter me up when he spoke with Mike, since I knew Ryan had drawn some of Mike’s books at that time), Steve Rude and Russ Heath (whose pin-ups I also hadn’t yet received), and JH Williams III (whose pin-up was completed and I would be picking up at this con). Mike flipped through and suddenly said, “How can I be a part of this?”
Wow. I almost fell over. I was speechless. I couldn’t believe it.
He gave me his business card, and I continued to bluster and finally said I’d taken up too much of his time, and he said he agreed that I had.
This happened back in the days when artists were still sending artwork in the mail, and then publishers had to return it. A package came in the mail and it contained Mike’s pin-up. He would not charge me for it, but he also said he liked the piece too much and wouldn’t let me buy the original. So I took a scan of it, and returned it in the mail to him.
Here’s Mike kindly standing behind my table with me, at Wondercon San Francisco 2006. If you look at my table, all five issues of Tabloia had been released, as well as the first Doris Danger treasury, Where Giant Monsters Creep and Stomp.
Mike later gave me a kind quote of endorsement for promotion, which I wrote about on page 000a Back Cover – Commentary: