October 5, 2006

 

Well, it had been over a year of sending emails and not getting any response.  And I didn’t have any other contact info.  And even if I did, he lives in England, which isn’t easy to pop over to.  So I was beginning to worry a bit, especially since he didn’t even show up at San Diego this year, and that’s basically my only chance ever to see him.  But finally, a year and a third later, I made contact with Simon Bisley, regarding the pin-up I paid him for, in advance, at San Diego Con 2005.

 

Over that year plus period, numerous emails I’d sent him remained unreplied.  I finally sent an email telling him we were going to have a baby, but no answer.  Then I wrote him to say it would be a boy, and we were naming him Oscar, but no answer.  I thought to myself, Well, those are the best I could do, to try and inspire him to write back.  If he doesn’t respond after that, maybe he isn’t going to write.  After we had Oscar, and after we had gone to San Diego and he wasn’t there, I finally sent another email, telling Simon about the birth of our boy, and how vividly and touchingly I remembered him talking about the love he had for his own kids, when we last saw him over dinner at San Diego 2005.  I gave a little description of what Elizabeth and I were up to, and what a handful Oscar was.  I mentioned it had been so long since I’d heard from him, and we’d love if he would contact us, and that we have a new address for him to send the pin-up when he’s finished.  Notice how subtly I slipped that in.

 

A few days later, I got a short email reply from him, saying to give him our phone number, and he’d call, because it’s easier than doing emails.  I immediately sent him our phone number, and when he didn’t call that weekend, I sent another email saying I was surprised, because I was so sure he would have called. 

 

That same week, my pin-up came in the mail from Luis Dominguez, so I was thinking of other comics artists.  That Thursday our phone rang, and I couldn’t understand who the person said it was, but I heard him say something about a pin-up.

 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch who you said this is?”

 

“It’s Simon,” he said.

 

OH, SIMON!  Great to hear from you!  We visited for some time.  He said, as usual, how great he thinks we are, and that he was sorry he hadn’t gotten to the pin-up, but that he thought he’d have it done by the end of October (which gives him a few weeks yet).  He said he wanted to do a creature coming out of the sea, and attacking the docks or the city on the coast.

 

I told him I was sad to have missed him at San Diego, and he said he would have liked to have come.  But he didn’t say why he didn’t make it, even after I told him he’d been listed in the catalogue to appear at the Heavy Metal booth.  He asked if we would be coming to Bristol, and I said we thought it might be a little rough bringing our baby, but said if he’d like to put us up at his place, we would definitely come out.  He paused for a moment, and I thought it was an awkward silence, but then I realized he just didn’t understand what I said.  Simon and I have this consistent difficulty understanding each other, with our different accents.  He teases me about mine, and I tease him about his.  We’re always asking each other to repeat ourselves, or explain just what the hell we mean to each other.  Later in the conversation I had to tell him I couldn’t understand his accent, because we were both just talking and not understanding each other.  I suspect we’re always MOSTLY communicating with each other, but who knows what subtleties, or even essential little tidbits, we’re always missing.

 

He asked how my self-publishing was going, and I made my usual reply that I’m losing money every issue I put out, and I’m basically struggling just to try and get my work seen out there.  He sympathized, and said that all the artists he talks to are having trouble getting work right now.  That surprised me, because it seems like there’s so much interest in comics right now.  I assumed, even though I’m doing my usual struggling, that a lot of other comics artists are doing pretty well.

 

He joked that he made some good money a couple years ago, from some sap who paid him to do a pin-up.  Then he immediately said he was just kidding, and he’d do my pin-up.  But the real joke was that the amount of money he said he’d made from the sap was actually only half of what that sap had paid him, so I began to wonder just what quality of pin-up that sap will be getting.

 

It was a real nice visit, and he gave me his address and phone numbers, and he said he wasn’t real good with emails, but he’s got it figured out now.

 

He gave me a the phone number about three times, and each time it was different.  He’d say, This is my number.  No wait, what’s my number?  And then I would repeat what he told me, and he’d say, no, no, it’s this.  So I wrote down everything he said separately, just in the hopes that maybe one of them would be right, if I needed to ever try and reach him.  Each number even had different amounts of digits.  It was amazing.

 

And then the same happened when he gave me his address.  He couldn’t remember the street, and then his address would have either four or five numbers in it.  What the hell…

 

So hopefully I’ll get a pin-up from him soon, and be able to publish it in my next humongous Doris Danger treasury, and everything will be okay.  My next Doris Danger book will most likely come out in time for San Diego 2007, which gives eight or so months.  Simon said he hopes it will be finished by the end of the month, but somehow I think it’s a better idea to just hope it appears within the next eight months.  And even that may be optimistic.  I think I’ll be the least upset if I just don’t plan to expect it until it’s in my hands.

Well I’ve heard from basically everyone I was waiting to hear from after San Diego, and it’s looking like everything is a no-go.  Image thinks the Doris Danger books are just not marketable enough, even though they enjoyed them.  AIT/Planet LAR thinks Limbo Cafe is too weird for them.  The movie studio I was talking with really enjoyed the Lump, but wasn’t expecting the tabloid twists I threw in at the end, and prefer to finance more straight-forward horror stories.  So once again, I’m back to self-publishing.  On the other hand, I’m building up contacts, so that each project I finish, I will have more people to send it to for potential future projects.

I got the orders for “Dr. DeBunko: The Short Stories,” and was disappointed to see them at 279, which is my – third? – lowest selling, lowest grossing title to date.  I had spent a lot of time trying to hype and promote it, so this was especially a disappointment.  It makes me wonder just how much the hype actually helps, since in this case, it appears not to have helped.  In my usual insecure, pessimistic fashion, I wonder if I shouldn’t just do whatever the hell I feel like, and if people buy it, great, and if they don’t, then at least I didn’t waste all that goddamn time trying to hype it.

Here are some things I did to try and hype the book.  I sent out emails to fans and shops on my spam list, and to editors and online comics organizations.  I sent 600 flyers to my distributor to get out to stores, which they never did anything with (because my new representative apparently didn’t know how to do what I asked him to do, so he just didn’t do it), despite all the time and money it cost me to produce them and get them to him. 

For the first time ever, and I’ve been told this is just what you have to do (see how I learn with experience), I sent advance copies of the full issue to a dozen interviewers and reviewers.  The only hype I know of which it received, as a result of this, was from my steady supporters at www.comixfan.com (Thanks a ton, guys!  I don’t know why you keep doing it).  They did an unprecedented interview AND sneak peek.  I felt excited and good about that, but then frustration ensued…

Their website allows viewers to include comments of their own, and before I had even been informed that the interview was up, a reader had publicly posted a comment, directly following my interview.  He flatly announced he would pass on my book, because of my overuse of the word “whacko,” which he determined was my synonym for “mentally disabled.”  He concluded that I must be a “real winner.”  Then at the bottom of his character-bashing announcement, he used the opportunity to invite readers to see a sneak-peek of his own upcoming comic.  Unbelievable…  Glad I could not only be the public demonstration of your ridicule and scorn, but also be used as a marketing opportunity for you, friend.

I guess I should be grateful that after two years of self-publishing, this was my first attack against my work or my character.  But I really took it personally, and was in a funk for the rest of the day.  I spent that time concocting a reply to his slam, in which I politely and defensively explained that I don’t really despise people with mental disorders.  He actually wrote back again that he accepted my apology, which is good, because if he had tried to escalate things, I would have had to have let him have the last word, rather than continue an idiotic dialogue on the defensive.  Interestingly, he even admitted he should check out the Skeptics Society, which I suspect may have been a part of his offensive reply to my interview.

What this has taught me is that my paranoid fear of saying things that will be either accidentally stupid, or taken out of context, misconstrued, or that will piss people off, is absolutely justified!  I had better be even more paranoid from here on out!

But other things are looking up.  While sending out hype for the Dr. DeBunko book, I have managed to wrangle up a new potential friend through comicon.com THE PULSE, who was kind enough to put together an interview on the subject of Dr. DeBunko and even a little hyping of the upcoming Doris Danger sixteen page comics.

Another ally that I’ve been in contact with for years, who is at last doing me another huge help in the marketing department is the Skeptic Society.  Their Skeptic Magazine’s official podcast, Skepticality, has asked me to participate in a podcast, and I’m both excited about it and worried that who the hell knows what crazy-assed stupid thing will come out of my mouth, when I’m trying to wow basically all the literati I wish most to impress and get in good graces with.  I’m breathing hard just thinking about it.

Doing books on a monthly schedule for three months in a row is a weird feeling.  I only just send out an announcement and start getting images printer-ready on the first book, and all of a sudden the second book’s announcement is due.  On top of that, I suddenly decided “Doris Danger Greatest Army Battles” just wasn’t quite working for me, and a month before it needs to go to the printer, I decided I need to completely redo three pages, followed by needing two new pages for the following month’s “Doris Danger in Outer Space.”  Five pages is usually nothing for me to complete over a two-month period, but now…I have a kid…

Having a kid is like this.  He screams and screams, so you hold him and rock him and shush him, and the next thing you know it’s time for bed and you haven’t been able to do anything else all day, except trying to keep him from crying all that time.  It feels like what little time I have to do something, I’m rushing to pound out just a few minutes of work, since I know that sleeping angel will be screaming again long before I’ve finished what I need to do.

Once again, Elizabeth, my wife and the mother of my child, is so supportive of my struggling comics career (I say struggling because despite working hard and trying everything I can think of, I remain unknown in the industry, and I’ve lost thousands of dollars every issue I’ve put out). She’s been willing to take our little Oscar and let me work, way more than I deserve.

I’m realizing, as soon as I get these last couple pages finished, I have no books necessarily planned.  I can theoretically start any project I want.  It’s kind of an exciting sensation to think about that, because I always enjoy the excitement of the new ideas more than the execution of the old ones.

Although I do feel like 1. I should do another twenty pages of Doris Danger stories, and then collect them in a second humongous treasury with the two upcoming issues, and 2. I might like to pound through Limbo Cafe and put that project behind me as well.

So most likely, that will be the game plan, just completing as much work as I can, as quickly as I can.

When Ben, the owner of Empire, emailed that he wanted me to sign for him at his grand-reopening sale, I was happy to do it.  He said Timothy Green II and Ron Lim had agreed to be there, and he asked if I knew any other local talent who might be willing to come in as well.  I ended up emailing Ryan Sook, JH Williams III, Mick Gray, Sam Kieth, and Mario Hernandez, because they were the only guys who didn’t live horribly far away, who I didn’t feel uncomfortable asking.  None of them were able to make it (and it turns out Ron Lim didn’t make it either, at least not while I was there), but JH (Jim) said he would have liked to have come out, because he wanted to meet Timothy Green II. 

I thought that was nice, because I’d been getting to know Timothy, and hanging out with him a little at some of the conventions.  I’d done a signing at this very store some time ago.  Timothy told me of his Moebius influences, and how he enjoyed trying to draw machines that looked functional.  He said he studied pictures of machines or engines or whatever, just to understand them visually, for his crazy futuristic cars and machines.  That stuck with me.

He’d just done “Aeon Flux” for Darkhorse, and issues of “Rush City” were starting to come out.  I guess Pontiac wanted to have a comic of their car, so that kids would think it’s cool and want to buy their cars when they got older or something.  Of all things, I was watching the Daily Show, and Lewis Black did a sequence about advertising on his “Back in Black” segment, and sure enough, he made fun of this car comic, and there was Timothy’s artwork, prominently displayed on the Daily Show.

So on the day of the signing, I was excited to tell Timothy about Jim wanting to meet him, as well as seeing his comic on tv.  He said that the editor on the comic was ecstatic, had contacted Timothy, and emailed him a link to the “Back in Black” segment.  But although Timothy thought it was cool and all, he’d never seen the Daily Show before, so I guess it wasn’t as special to him as it was to his editor and me.

He wasn’t familiar with JH Williams’ artwork, so I poked around through the store, perusing the racks for awhile, and I found the first trade paperback of “Seven Soldiers of Victory.”  Timothy really took his time flipping through, and was really impressed with Jim’s work.  He picked up right away on the Moebius “Blueberry” influence/homage of the Western scenes.  I get the feeling Timothy could be on his way up in the comics industry.  He’s been landing work pretty steadily, and seems to be getting quite well-paying, high profile gigs.

He said that the sales of his car book haven’t been particularly good, but that he’s still happy, because they paid him a lot to do them.  He said DC Comics, who published the book, is happy, because they were paid a lot by Pontiac for the licensing. And the greatest part is, even though sales haven’t been great, Pontiac has been excited to see their Solstice GXM prominently in action in comics!  Talk about a win-win.  Supposedly the car company is even talking about doing a sequel!

Timothy said the challenge with this comic is that so much of it is a drawing of a person sitting in a car, talking on a cell phone.  So Timothy has to keep coming up with new angles and ways of showing this exact same image, panel after panel, and somehow keeping it interesting.  He said he needs pictures of more different kinds of cell phones too, because he has one, and his girlfriend has one, and he doesn’t want everyone in the comic to have those same two cell phones.  Funny to listen to the kinds of dilemmas different people have on their different projects.

For this signing, no one bought any of my comics, and I think I talked to two people, but one of them was a guy I had just seen over at the A-1 signing a couple months before.  He was at both signings because both stores had had sales on their back issues. 

That’s exactly how I was, about ten years ago, where getting a good deal on back-issues was all that really mattered.

Still had a nice time, and I’d be happy to do it again, any time.

In my limited experience, I’ve found that when I do local store signings, I’m just an unknown and no one excitedly rushes out to meet me.  Maybe a few friends pop in to say hello, and that’s about it.  So I’ve stopped asking shops if it would be all right if I come out special and do a signing.  But on the other hand, if a shop invites me, then I’m happy to oblige.  I think it’s important to support businesses that are so supportive of me, and it builds good relations.  Plus, I have a good time.  I got a couple of these recently.

June  24^th, 2006 A-1 Comics Small Press Day Signing

Every year, A-1 Comics invites local artists to spend a few hours in their shop for “small press day,” which has been on “Free Comic Book Day” the last few years.  I assumed it would be the same this year, and I would miss it, because I had scheduled a trip out of town, but they picked a different day, partially to celebrate the opening of their new location.  When I found out, I wound up contacting a number of my local self-publishing friends (local being Northern California) to see if they might like to join in the fun.  I wrote to some slightly bigger names in the industry as well, but none of them ended up coming.  Of all the people I wrote, three people said they were coming, another seriously considered it, and only Matt Silady, who shared our table at San Diego, came up.

Brian, the owner, however, convinced Ron Lim and Thomas Yeates to hang out for awhile.

Also appearing were “The Nice Guy” creators Michael O’Connell and Tim Watts, Leigh Dragoon (“Spidric”), Dan Cooney (“Valentine”), Mike Hampton (Captain A*hole), and Zac Henderson (“Project i.O”). 

I got to the shop, and I was sitting by Ron, who is just about the friendliest guy around.  I see him at all the local cons, either at a table, or just wandering around.  He’s always smiling and friendly, and real positive about my work.  We got him talking about his art style, and how he’s made a conscious decision to simplify his backgrounds, because he was tired of seeing all his detail flattened out by a one-color-wash from his colorist.  So he’s started having to think in color as he’s drawing.

I found this interesting.  It reminded me of some of my monster pages Dick Ayers inked.  When I studied them, I realized that some color could easily add some depth to the linework, but in black and white they felt a little flatter.  It made me aware that I was beginning to visualize my work in black and white.  If my work began getting colored, I would have to re-imagine my line quality.  You don’t think of this stuff…until you have to think about it.

Ron was only there maybe an hour, and I was sad to see him go, but soon after, Thomas Yeates appeared, so he just took Ron’s seat right by me.

We were talking a little about my comics, and I mentioned how I’m a big fan of film noir and EC-style horror, and Thomas said, “Really.  I would have thought your stuff comes more from the pages of Mad Magazine.”  Somehow, the thought that people would have this kind of view of my work surprised me.  I don’t know why.  I should take it as a compliment, because I try to be funny with my work, and I do a fair amount of parodies, so maybe Mad Magazine is where I belong.  I just never really realized that’s what I was doing, I guess.  It can be sobering when people tell you their perceptions of you, if it doesn’t match with your perceptions of yourself.

I had brought some copies of the Ojo trade paperback to sell, and that caught Thomas’s eye, and I began showing him, page by page, what I had done, and what Sam had done.  I’d turn to one page, and he’d say, “Oh, wow, Did you draw that?  Look at how well you’ve drawn water there.  You can really feel the fluidity!  That’s amazing!” and I’d have to say, “No, Sam drew that one.  You’re right; it is a great page.”  And then he’d say, “What a great image that is!” and I’d say, “Uh.  Yeah.  That’s Sam’s page too.”  I know I’m no Sam Kieth, but here I was hoping my pages held up okay, and Thomas, with his artist’s eye, could really nail it.  I felt just as transparent as can be. 

He was really impressed with Sam as an artist, and was asking what Sam used to get his thin white lines.  I told him it was Pentel “Presto!” correction markers, but Thomas said he’d tried using them, and couldn’t get such a thin line.  I later emailed Sam on Thomas’s behalf.  Sam confirmed that he was using Prestos with medium tips, but then he recommended something new he’d found that he liked even better, called Gelly Roll fine and medium point pens.  Sam said they’re the he’s found, although they dry up and clog with india ink.  On the other hand, they’re cheap, so I passed the info back to Thomas.

Thomas said he’d recently been drawing on HUGE paper.  I think it must be like 22”x28” or something crazy.  This is, of course, how the old, OLD pros used to do their work.  Flash Gordons and Prince Valiants and such.  Thomas found he really enjoyed the look of the work, once it got shrinked down to comic-sized pages.  The drawback was that no comics company has scanners that can scan these images at this size, and it’s an absolute pain-in-the-ass to scan each half and then try to splice them together.  It more than doubles your work.  Probably quadruples it, I’m guessing, and I know, because I tried scanning pages on a smaller scanner, before I bought an ultra-expensive 12”X17” scanner.  He said what he has to do is take his pages to Kinkos, and have them make a reduced-size copy, which I think he said costs two bucks (maybe one) a page.  He finds this extra cost and work worth it, for the product he’s able to produce as a result.  Interesting process.  I was really fascinated.

I knew he was interested in things like Zorro and Tarzan, and so I told him I had recently been reading a lot of these books.  I don’t think I told him, but I’ve never been particularly interested in the adventure genre, and I realized how little I’d read when I was trying to figure out who all the characters were in Alan Moore’s Extraordinary Gentlemen.  So that led me to read 20,000 Leagues, Dracula, King Solomon’s Mines, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man (or at least listen to them on audio book).  From there, I just continued reading stacks of other books by H.Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jules Verne.  I enjoyed it enough to continue onto the adventure/sci-fi line with stacks of H.G. Welles, Tarzan and “Princess of Mars” and “Land Before Time,” Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, Moby Dick, Three Muskateers and Count of Monte Cristo, and anything else I could think of.  So we spent some time talking about good adventure books, and he mentioned that he was surprised how much he had enjoyed “The Adventures of Robin Hood” recently.  It was one I had enjoyed too.

At this signing, I think one guy bought one of my comics, and maybe two other guys came over and talked to me for a while, and that was as much as I expected.  But I still had a really nice time, got some professional tips, and visited with everybody and hung out.

AUG 18, 2006

I had felt good at the San Diego Con, speaking with AIT/Planet LAR about publishing my Limbo Café story.  I checked in periodically to see if they’d had a chance to look over the story, but of course, the post-San Diego pile of submissions takes time to flip through.  I sent an email about how the Skeptics Society gave me a big push for my Dr. DeBunko book, and said that I think it might be good timing to either do a full Dr. DeBunko limited series or to proceed with my Christian Fundamentalist-critical “Limbo Café,” both of which are very skeptical in nature, and could get this completely new, skeptical, non-comics audience interested in reading comic books.  I found out today that AIT/Planet LAR isn’t interested in my Limbo Café proposal.  They said it’s a bit too out there for them.  They gave me a suggestion for someone to pitch Dr. DeBunko to.  I really appreciate their honesty, and willingness to help out.  I would enjoy doing a book for them, if they ever gave me the opportunity.

I’ve sent occasional letters out to Image to check in as well, regarding my Doris Danger stories.  I immediately wrote, after hearing from Stan Lee and Shag.  I’m hoping it will be a feather in my cap, and a potential marketing opportunity for them, that the next issue will have a Shag cover and a Stan Lee blurb, but who knows.  Erik Larsen already told me at San Diego he’s concerned with my sales numbers.  I suspect Image will also think my stories are a bit too out there.

And of course, I got a rejection from Fantagraphics a few months ago, regarding my Doris Danger stories, which they said were way out there, but in a good way.  But whether it was in a good way or not, they weren’t interested in publishing them.  Just the same, I thought it was a very kind letter, that they acknowledged me and my work, and didn’t just send out a form rejection.  And that they replied at all, instead of not even bothering.

Today, despite all the actually quite stunning good fortune I’ve had, and despite numerous huge signs that I’m making progress in the industry, I’m in a bad mood about my comics, and I insecurely wonder if nothing will pan out.  I negatively fantasize how the movie options won’t pan out.  Maybe the first guy has decided he isn’t interested, and decided with such finality that he isn’t even going to bother to write me.  And maybe the second guy isn’t actually in tv at all.  He’s just trying to get his foot in tv, the same way I’m just trying to get into comics, so he won’t have any power to try and get a Tabloia tv show, even if he still likes it.  Or the letter I sent him with all my ideas for a tv series made him realize that I’m insane, and would not be a good person to work with.

A theme I’m beginning to realize with my work is that people seem to think it’s “out there.”  I guess I didn’t realize, or want to admit, my stuff is so out there, but if everyone says so, then I guess it must be.  Or if everyone says it is, then it doesn’t matter if it really is or not; what matters is that’s how it’s perceived.

Am I going to spend my life doing all these stories I enjoy, but everyone feeling I’m that guy whose stuff is just too weird?  Will I be one of those pretentious lunatics who’s always bellowing that I’m a genius, and complaining that no one else realizes or respects my brilliance, when in actuality, my stuff just isn’t that good?

I guess all I can really do at this point is keep plugging away, and hopefully getting better all the time, and hopefully an audience who appreciates what I do will eventually find me.

So I feel like all these things are going my way. But of course things crop up now and then that get me all sad about my position in the industry all over again. So I’m alternating, as usual, between feeling like a superstar and a complete pudd-whacking loser.

THE BABY

When we had Oscar, I sent out a mailer to everyone on the Tabloia Mailing List saying I was a dad. Then I sent out pictures to all our friends, including all our comics professional friends – artists, distributors, editors, reviewers; everyone. It was great to get all these fun emails from all my comics celebrity artists, and I’m tempted to post them up at the website somewhere. We’ll see…

So that’s the positive part. The bad fall-out was, this mailer caused people, for the first time in the eight mailers I’ve sent since November 2005, to ask to be removed from the mailer. And since it’s the first time, I second guess myself and wonder if I’m not partially responsible, and I feel guilty as hell. Will this be the mailer that goes down in history as “that” inappropriate mailer.

The previous mailer, I had mentioned how Elizabeth was dilated three centimeters and her cervix was thinned out eighty-five percent. Then, down in San Diego, I was telling everyone the same figures. Finally, Elizabeth pointed out to me all the disgusted faces with which so many people replied to my figures, that it may be a little too much information for a lot of people. So then we joked, Okay, I’ll have to send out a follow-up email that there is a change in policy, and beginning now I won’t mention your cervix, vagina, or other body parts. But then I sent out that very email, and all of a sudden, it didn’t seem so funny any more, and I had insecure misgivings about it.

I like to think this is the reason we had our highest (and only) requests yet to be removed from the mailer. The reason I feel especially sick about it is that one of the requests came from a major player in the industry and distributor of my books. Yow!

DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS

When I submitted my Dr. DeBunko story for distribution, I also informed them I wanted to send out flyers with Dr. DeBunko sneak peeks to all the stores who sell indie comics. I’d done this when my first issue of Tabloia came out, and I thought I would try it again, now that I was publishing a comic that began with issue #1 – the ultimate marketing strategy, as opposed to my previous “issue number 572” as a first issue – which turned out not to be such a good marketing strategy.

I was just recently switched to a new representative, because my original one got a promotion. My new one admitted he wasn’t sure how to do this promotion, but that he would check with the original rep to get me set up.

So for the last two months I’ve been emailing or calling him and asking him what he needs from me so that we can make sure these flyers get sent out. A month ago I finally printed out and sent him 600 flyers, which cost me over a hundred dollars to print and send. Still no word, so finally today I called my original rep to see if he could enlighten me on the progress of this effort. I learned that I shouldn’t have sent them to the rep, I should have sent them to the warehouse, but only after getting a Purchase Order, which of course I’d never gotten. All this being the case, he informed me that there was no way these flyers would get out to stores before stores ordered the books. So in other words, not only am I out all the time and money of designing and printing these flyers, but also I will not be getting any promotion for this comic that I wanted to really push.

I was pretty pissed, but what can you do. Except fume about all the other stuff that’s gone wrong, which I will continue in next week’s thrilling blog installment!

As I say, rock star, loser, super stud, failure…What a roller coaster this industry can be.

First of all, Shag – the artist whose work I adore – wrote me that he’d like to contribute to my giant monster book.   At the convention, we had talked about commissions, which he doesn’t do, but he had said he had a piece he could give me permission to publish.  I had told him my books were black and white, but now, in his email, he said he wasn’t sure that he had time to revamp his art in a way it would republish in black-and-white.  He said, if I wouldn’t mind using an image for a cover, that would be fine, because that way he could just send me the color image as is.  So I’m going to have a SHAG COVER for my next monster book!  I was thrilled.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  Unbelievable!  I absolutely never imagined such luck.

He emailed me FOUR options (!!!).  Did I mention I couldn’t believe it?  Here I assumed we would maybe take one of his old tiki paintings, maybe crop it down so that it was just the tiki, or something like that.  But he sent me FOUR paintings, full on compositions.  Giant monster compositions!  Attacking towns, dragging screaming women into the jungle, stomping through a villa.  This guy has DRAWN GIANT MONSTERS!  I had no idea he’d already contributed so thoroughly to my h’ouvre.   Or is it ouvre?

THE SKEPTICS SOCIETY

My contact at the Skeptics Society emailed me out the blue, after my baby came, that they have an official podcast, that was the number one independent podcast online for a while, before they had to take an unforeseen break.  But they’re just about ready to fire it up again, and want me to be a guest, hyping Dr. Debunko and talking about being a younger-than-fifty-year-old Skeptic trying to spread the word of Skepticism.  On top of that, he said he got word from the man in charge and my idol, Michael Shermer, that they want to be sure and talk me up in one of their e-mailers.  What great support!  What great news!  When my first comic was going to come out, they mentioned me on their e-mailer, and my website got over a thousand additional hits.  This time I have to be sure and be ready, and have plenty of info up, and my books and t-shirts available to buy.

STAN “THE MAN” LEE

Next on the list of unbelievable excitement: I called Stan Lee’s representative (whose contact info I got at the con) and told him who I was, and he assured me that he had gotten my book into Stan’s hands.  I asked if there might be any chance to get a blurb from Stan, and at first he said he didn’t think so, but then he rethought it, and by the end of the conversation he was asking me, So if Stan called me and just said something about my book, could I use that?  I was dumbfounded.  I told him, Well, you could just email me a sentence or two, if that would be easier.  He said he’d check with Stan and get back to me.

I assumed I would need to call back in a couple weeks, but before I had a chance to even think about it, I got a call saying Stan would do a blurb for me, and could I please send an email with an idea of what I might like Stan to say, and then Stan would rewrite it in “his own inimitable style.”  Uh…okay…  He wanted me to just send a couple sentences.  Man, what a lot of pressure.  So let me get this straight, I’m just going to write whatever I’d like Stan to say about my book, and then he’ll change it so that it sounds like something Stan said.  

At first I thought maybe they had actually just lost the book or thrown it out without looking at it, and that’s why they wanted me to give them a sample of what to say.  Upon looking at what Stan wrote, though, I see he must have seen the book.

So I thought over my dilemma for a while, then I finally sat in front of my computer and basically just brainstormed a bunch of outrageous, self-congratulatory, pretentious, pompous compliments about myself.  I ended up sending a full paragraph of what I thought Stan “The Man” Lee should say about my work, and here’s what I wrote:

“Quirky, kitschy, hilarious, odd, full of Lee-Kirby energy…and I know!  A loving homage full of bizarre and random characters, plot twists that don’t make much sense, kooky giant monsters, and a whole lot of exclamation points and fun!  Takes me back.  Kirby and I did giant monsters better, but Chris’s “Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures” are next up on the list.  A great package, full of pin-ups by all my favorite artists, in a gorgeous over-sized format that makes me feel like a kid.  The truest, most heartfelt homage I’ve seen to my work.”

Oh, man, it makes me gag to think Stan “The Man” Lee, my idol, saw me write this stuff about myself and knew I wanted him to say these things about me.  But the following week, I had a blurb from my idol, and the man who wrote the stories I grew up with and loved so much that I dedicated a book to ripping off his style…Stan “The Man” Lee wrote me a blurb about my monster books!

Sometimes, I feel like I’m on the cusp of really big, really great things that are just about ready to tip in my favor.  But then other days… (See next exciting entrée, fans)!

Now we’ve had a chance to get back home from San Diego, unpack, have a baby.  The usual stuff.

My parents stayed with Elizabeth and I for a couple weeks, to help us out with our new little man.  Now that we’ve got a baby, it feels like there are always things that need to be done, and I feel like I’m never quite caught up with everything I need to do, and there is always something that needs to be done that isn’t getting done.  This is how my life will be from here on out, I’m assuming.  From a comics-self-publishing standpoint, I’m always a day or so behind as far as who I need to email, what I need to write, draw, send out, pack up to send out, and all that other self-publishing stuff. 

Here are some huge accomplishments as a result of San Diego.

POTENTIAL MOVIE DEALS 

I emailed one of the Hollywood guys who said he thought my comic looked good.  He said he seriously had my comics on his coffee table at home, and planned to read them that night.

Out of the blue, another film person emailed me, said he’d only taken the first issue, but could already tell it would make a good tv show.  He mentioned the Sci-Fi Channel and a show his friend had recently done, starting as a made-for-tv movie, that got spun into a regular series. 

I wrote back to him, asking what he had in mind, feeling a little skeptical.  He immediately wrote back that he thought it should be a Tales From The Crypt or Twilight Zone style format, with three vignettes in a ninety-minute pilot.

When he said this, I started getting really excited, because I never imagined anyone would want to take this approach with my stories.  I assumed people would like this character or that, and want to do a Dr. DeBunko series, for example.  But never to take everything and keep the whole Tabloia style and format. 

I wrote him back and spouted way too many ideas, and sent him copies of the rest of my Tabloia issues.  It’s now been a week or so, and I haven’t heard back again.

The other Hollywood guy wrote back once and mentioned he had read some of them and thought there may be some potential.  So by early August I’m feeling pretty studly, and as if potential live-action Tabloia isn’t exciting enough, I got Shag, Skeptic Society, and Stan Lee news.

San Diego 2006

A few more of the usual convention excitements.  I said the usual hellos to Matt Wagner and Jon K. Snyder, who I always enjoy.  I found William Stout and apologized I couldn’t afford to get a pin-up from him (we’d discussed the possibility through emails), and he was as friendly as can be, and even let us take a photo with him at our booth.  I got to visit a bit with Tim Bradstreet, who I always absolutely adore.  My wife laughs at me, because I have the biggest crush on him.  I tried to get him to hang out with me one evening, but we weren’t able to hook up.   He told me where he was planning to be one night, and I went there and stayed pretty late, and never saw him.  The next day I asked him, and he said, Oh yeah, sorry, that place was so packed, we went somewhere else.  The way he said it with such empathy, and since I’ve got such a crush on him, I didn’t get the impression he was sending me on a wild goose chase.  I asked about hooking up another night, and he said, Well, this night is the bladdy-blah party –  You’re familiar with it?  It’s an invite-only for professionals – I thought maybe you’d be going.  I spoke with other friends, who it turned out were also invited and going, and it made me feel low, not actually being invited.

 I got to visit a bit with Adam Hughes, who confirmed he couldn’t let me publish a pin-up by him since he’s exclusive with DC, and said he didn’t even think it would be a good idea if I got a monster sketch from him to post at my website. 

At one point, Elizabeth and I were just wandering around, and happened to see Ray Harryhausen just sitting quietly at a booth.  We ran up and got our picture taken with him.  I didn’t bother him about pin-ups, just wanted to see him.

When we had first checked in at our hotel, we bumped into Joshua Dysert, who I’d met at Wondercon this year.  And he recognized me and pulled me aside to say hello.  We wound up spending some time with him in a bar one night, and he told us how well his comics career has been going this year.  He said he hooked up with some editors at Darkhorse and DC, and he’s been offered so much work, he doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to do it all.  But he says he’s never been in this position before, and he’s really stoked that his career has gotten to this point.  That’s got to be a great feeling.

The night the convention ended, we went out for ice cream and realized we were sitting next to Roger Corman, but I was too timid, while he was having ice cream, to butt in and ask if he would take a picture with me.  I watched him get up and leave, another missed opportunity.

Even so, I got a ton of great photos with a ton of great comics professionals.  I think it will look real nice at my website.  It will make me look so impressive to the average passer-through-of-websites, don’t you think?  If I have met and rubbed shoulders with all these greats, I must also be a great, and then everyone will be bound to want to buy my books, right?  I’ll be “that guy who would have a ton of great photos if he hadn’t butted his face into all of the otherwise great shots.”  What an ingenious marketing ploy!

On the last day, Matt Silady, who’d shared the booth with us, said something that made me feel really good.  He said, It will be interesting to see where your career is at this time next year.  Because after this convention, it kind of feels like I’m getting close to the cusp of something, and I just keep waiting for it to tilt in my favor.

Ironically, a year from San Diego 2006, it would wind up being Matt and not me whose career seemed to really publisher-wise, critically, sales-wise, and media-wise just absolutely skyrocket.

But back to me.  If you look at each of my San Diego Cons (and just generally how I’m doing as a struggling self-publisher)…Even if it doesn’t look like I’m able to get work, and even if I continue to struggle every issue I self-publish (in that I lose money every issue, and I spend all this time and effort and money trying to get reviews, get word out, go to conventions, get my work better distributed, and just drum up more interest and it doesn’t happen)…even with all that, I feel like every year, I’m more and more professional, making more and better connections, getting just that little bit more known, building just a couple new fans, and more and more fun is happening!  Not to mention I think my art is getting better every year, my control and understanding.  I’m getting better and better all around at figuring this game out, and that feels pretty good.  And what a hell of a good time I had this year at San Diego!

And just like, another amazing San Diego Comic Con was over.

San Diego 2006

So here we are in the heat of the San Diego Comic-Con festivities, I’m at the usual bar, and I’ve just spoken to JH Williams about maybe trying to get published through Image Comics, and I glance over, and Jim is talking with Erik Larsen, the man in charge of Image Comics.

So I poke over, and I’m nervous and I’m whispering to Jim, with Erik standing over just a couple people. It’s as if I’m in seventh grade.

Me: I can’t believe you’re standing here with him right now. He’s the head of Image.

Jim: I know. I haven’t really spoken with him before. I just met him. You should introduce yourself.

Me: We’ve met, he actually bought one of my books at Wondercon.

Jim: Then go say hi.

Me: What should I say? What should I do? Do I look all right? Is my breath okay?

So I walk sheepishly over, looking down at my shoes, and dragging my feet. I introduce myself and tell Erik I do those Kirby-style giant monster comics. And he says, Yeah, I know, I remember. I liked your book. And I’m thinking, wow, not only does he remember me and my book, but he says he likes it too. So I say a couple pleasantries, and then a sheepish “Well, so long,” type of exit, before I say anything to embarrass myself. And then I hurry back around the couple people back to Jim, and I’m beaming, and I tell him, He remembered me, and he said he liked my book.

And Jim says, And?

So I say, And?

And he says, So why didn’t you follow that up with, So what can I do to get published through you with Image? And I say, Um… And Jim says, So go back over there and ask him. And Jim is practically shoving me, as if we’re at a Junior high school dance, and I’m resisting, and thinking, What should I say? What if he doesn’t like me?

So now Erik is speaking with someone, and I’m waiting and wondering how stupid this looks that I just spoke with him, and now I’m coming back over. When he finishes talking with the other person, he begins to turn like he’s going to walk away, so I catch his attention, and I say, “Erik, I just thought I would ask, since you mentioned you liked my book, if you might consider publishing it through Image?”

So then, Erik gets down to business. He says, Well what kind of numbers are you selling. And I think, Uh oh. I told him the original Diamond sales were 350. And he says, Yeah, those are pretty low. I don’t know that Image could help you much. I mean, your numbers would go up, but those numbers are still too low.

But despite this, I had the impression he would like to publish the books. And finally he said to send him an email, and send him the books again, and he would give them a look over. So on the one hand, it was problematic that he knew the book didn’t sell well. But on the other hand, he was willing to consider it, and look it over.

What more can I say? Erik is, of course, a huge Kirby fan, and has dedicated whole issues of his Savage Dragon to a bit character from Kamandi. So it seems to me that if I’m going to have a shot at getting a publisher, it would be through him.

I hurried back to Jim, once again like a seventh grade dance, to be sure and tell him everything that happened. What’d he say? I said this. And what’d he do? He did this. You see, It wasn’t so bad. Just like in Junior High.